; / 



WAR MEMORANDA. 



CHEAT RIVER TO THE TENNESSEE 
i86 1-1862, 



COLONEL CHARLES WHITTLESEY, 

UNITED STATES VOLUNTEERS, 
Military Engineer in Chief for the State and Department of Ohio. 






CLEVELAND, O. 

WILLIAM W. WILLIAMS, 

1884. 






Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1884, 

By W. W. Williams, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



PREFACE. 



It is in the power of gifted writers to make the Hterature of 
war extremely attractive. The horrid panorama of battle, well 
portrayed, possesses a fascinating interest for every one. The 
science of war, including that of fortification, requires the 
highest application of the exact sciences, and the best skill of 
well educated minds. In its practice the greatest variety of 
detail is brought into play, sustained by personal courage and 
the highest exhibition of human energy. 

With all these advantages of a subject, the readers of these 
pages must not anticipate literary attractions. During a brief 
service in the war of the Rebellion, my field notes, sketches 
and maps naturally accumulated, as the results of personal ob- 
servations. The memory of those days has not weakened by 
the lapse of time. Every reference to those memoranda has 
made the recollection of events more interesting and vivid. 
I shall not be able to impress upon my readers these glow- 
ing visions of the past, which, under the mechanical act of 
writing, lose their brilliancy. Many years since, without any 
specific object, most of these papers were outlined as a conge- 
nial occupation. They are here produced in a manner that 
makes no pretense to statistical or historical completeness, but 
with a feeling that no narrative of military events, by parties 
who participated in them, can be without some value. 

The occasional use of ths personal pronoun is liable to the 
charge of egotism. I think it preferable to the use of " the 
present writer," "the narrator," or "the author," which are 
open to the same objection, and also to that of awkward 
circumlocution. 



CONTENTS. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

TYGARTS VALLEY ESCAPE OF GEN. GARNETT. 

Cheat River Country — Troops cross the Ohio— Gen. Garnett— Rich Mountain and 
Laurel Hill— Mountain Roads— Federal Positions— Capture of Rich Mouniain— Pursuit 
of Garnett — Corrick's Ford— B. & O. Railway — Union Troops not Concentrated — Con- 
duct of the Inhabitants— Chisholm's Mills— West Union— Red House— Horse Shoe Run 
— Retreat of the Fugitives — The Pursuit — Cause of the Escape— Criticisms and Retorts 
of Commanders— Energy of the Confederates— Their Suffering on the Retreat — Map of 
the Region. 

CHAPTER n. 

ON THE KANAWHA, JULY AND AUGUST, 1 86 1. 

The Kanawha River— Force of Gen. Wise— Affair at Scarey's Run— Encounter of the 
Pickets— Col. Norton's Attack— Contest at the Bridge— Major Hinds on the Flank- 
Federal Retreat— Surgeon Trotter— Capt. Sloane— Finale of the Affair— Gen. Wise on the 
Result— Burning of a Steamer— Occupation of Charleston — Pursuit of Gen. Wise— Gen. 
Cox at Gauley— A Kentucky Abolitionist— Protection of Rebel Property— Plan[of the Field. 



CHAPTER HI. 

CAPTURE OF FORT DONELSON. 

Origin of the Movement— On the Ohio River Transports— On the Cumberland— Attack 
of the Gun Boats— Jessie R. Grant— Headquarters of Gen. Grant— Repulse of Commo- 
dore Foote — Sortie of Saturday Morning — Situation of Donelson — Exterior Lines 
of Works— Prelude of the Conflict— Defeat of Gen. McClernand— The Men of Illi- 
nois — Hopes and Fears — A Reliable Regiment — A Lull Along the Lines — The Charge of 
Smith's Division- Floyd and Pillow— Bad Faith of the Renegades— The Works Occupied 
— Dead, Wounded, and Prisoners — Scenes at the Landing — Gen. Buckner and Staff — Rain, 
Wind, and Exposure— Rolls of the Prisoners — Official Courtesy — Captured Artillery — 
Condition of the Troops — Closing Scenes — Plan of the Field. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

BATTLE OF SHILOH CHURCH. ) 

A Military Interregnum— The Advance on Memphis — Topography of the Field — Divis- 
ion of Gen. Prentiss — Attack of Sunday — Close of the First Day — Discomfort of the Night 
— Strength of Grant's Command — An Attack Expected — Lew Wallace's Division — State- 
ments of the Officers— Statements Continued — The Same Subject — Gen. Kneufler, A. A. 
G. — Third Brigade — Third Division — Gen. Wallace's Report — Rate of Marching — Rate of 
Buell and Beauregard — Critical Remarks — Skirmish of Col. Buckland — Sketch of the 
Ground and Positions. 

CHAPTER V. 

MOVEMENT ON CINCINNATL 

Survey of the Lines — Works Built in 1861 — Invasion of 1862 — Occupation of Eastern 
Kentucky — General Confederate Advances— Situation of the Armies — The Position in 
Kentucky — Martial Law at Cincinnati — Troops on the Union Lines — Plan of the Works 
— Picket Lines in Contact — Expectation of Plunder — Activity of the Citizens — Safety of 
the City Assured — Departure of Gen. Heath— Line of the Forts and Batteries. 



CHAPTER VI. 

UNION GENERALS. 

Gen. J. B. McPherson— Gen. O. M. Mitchel— Gen. S. R. Curtis— Gen. J. D. Cox- 
Gen. M. D. Leggett— Gen. M. F. Force. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Major Bostwick's Capture — His Treatment by the Guards — Sufferings at Charleston 
Prison —Escape from Columbia — A Month in the Mountains — Reaches Knoxville, 370 
Miles — Experience of Col. Garis — Capture at Cynthiana, Kentucky — Diabolical Treat- 
ment of Morgan's Men. 



WAR MEMORANDA. 



CHAPTER I. 



TYGARTS VALLEY CAMPAIGN — GEN. GARNETT's ESCAPE, JULY, 1861. 

The escape of that portion of the Confederate army under 
Gen. Garnett, after the defeat at Rich Mountain, was certainly 
not creditable to the Union forces. Smarting under the loss of 
so many troops, which he considered to be his prisoners, it is 
not strange that Gen. McClellan censured Gen. Hill in a man- 
ner quite unusual for him. It is not as a controversialist that I 
take up the subject, having at all times had no other sentiments 
than those of respect or friendship for all of the parties. I 
have, however, considered that the facts did not justify either 
the crimination of Gen. McClellan or the recrimination of Gen. 
Hill. A review of the situation may place them on better 
terms, and may do something for history, which is at first 
always partial and fragmentary, but eventually becomes reliable 
through many witnesses. 

The States of Ohio and Indiana were in advance of the Gen- 
eral Government in the rapidity of preparation. If they had 
been old monarchies, always ready for aggression, they could 
not have met the emergency more promptly. The loyal men 
of West Virginia were organizing, but were about to be 
crushed. There being no hope of relief from Washington, an 
earnest but manly appeal was made to the States on the 
north side of the Ohio river. The governors of these States 
became quasi-military officers. By a masterly policy they were 
authorized to defend territory outside of State limits. 

By the first of June, volunteer troops from Ohio and Indiana 
were in position across the Ohio river. At daylight on the 
morning of the 3d, in concert with Col. Kelley's regiment of 
West Virginia, they attacked Philippi (or Philippa), twelve 
miles south of Grafton, driving Col. Porterfield, of the Rebel 



6 WAR MEMORANDA. 

forces, up the valley of Tygarts river. In a short time there 
were ten regiments from Ohio and six from Indiana in that 
part of Virginia, They were commanded by officers of the 
State militia, Generals McClellan, Morris, Hill and Cox. 

Gen. Garnett had been adjutant-general and a favorite of 
Gen. Lee at Richmond. He was sent to assume command in 
the Cheat River district, as the opponent of Gen. McClellan. 
It was the design of the Federal commander to seize the Vir- 
ginia Central railroad at Milborough, by passing the Elk 
Mountain gap, in the direction of Huntersville, nearly south 
about fifty miles. Garnett found the Confederate forces so 
weak, so poorly organized and inefficiently commanded, that 
he had little hopes of saving that important railroad, by which 
Richmond connected with East Tennessee and Western Virginia. 
When Gen. McClellan directed Gen. Rosecrans to attack the 
Rebel force on the summit of Rich mountain, Gen. Garnet was 
posted on the road over the summit of Laurel mountain. 
Lieut. -Col. Heck was the ranking officer on Rich mountain, 
but Lieut. -Col. Pegram, having been an officer in the United 
States army, claimed the command. Col. Heck yielded in a 
sulky mood, out of deference to Gen. Garnett. This position 
was of much more consequence than that of Gen. Garnett's, 
seven miles further north, and was much stronger in a military 
sense. If captured, the route of Gen. Garnett's supplies and 
retreat, through Beverly or the Green Brier gap, was closed. 
Instead of an inferior officer and a divided authority, this point 
deserved a good, superior officer, with all the resources in 
Tyc^arts valley. It would seem that the Rebel commander v^'as 
meditating upon offensive movements against the Baltimore 
and Ohio railroad, more than the defense of his position. 
None deemed it possible for the Union forces to scale Rich 
mountain, on Pegram's left; -but had fears of a turning 
movement on his right, along an old road near the river gap, 
which separated their camps. Both positions were partly down 
the mountain, on the west side. To communicate with Peg- 
ram, Garnett was obliged to go eastward down Laurel hill to 
Leadville church, then southerly toward Beverly to the turn- 



TYGARTS VALLEY CAMPAIGN. 7 

pike, and along it west and northwest over Rich mountain, in 
all eleven or twelve miles. 

Tygarts Valley river rises at the Cheat River range, runs 
northerly past Huttonsville and Beverly, and, further north, 
passes the range through a gap to the westward, where it is 
joined by the Middle fork, and runs northerly past Philippi, 
Grafton and Fairmount. The turnpike from Staunton, Va., to 
the Greenbrier river and Cheat mountain, passes Huttons- 
ville and Beverly, thence across Rich mountain to Buckhan- 
non and Weston. Another road leaves the turnpike near the 
gap, crosses Laurel mountain to Philippi, intersecting the west- 
ern turnpike at Clarksburg. A county road extends northerly 
on the east of Laurel mountain to Rowlesburg, and also one 
on the west side down the valley to Pruntystown and Grafton. 
Cheat river heads with the Greenbrier, and runs northerly on 
the east side of the Cheat mountains past St. George and 
Rowlesburg, which is situated on the Baltimore & Ohio rail- 
road. The next mountain range to the east is the Alleghany, 
and east of it are the south forks of the Potomac. Rich moun- 
tain and Laurel hill are only different names for a range of 
high, precipitous mountains to the west of the upper part of 
Tygarts river. At the north end is Laurel hill, which com- 
mands the road to Beverly. About eight miles south another 
road leads over Rich mountain from Weston, and the north- 
western turnpike also to Beverly, where were the Confederate 
headquarters and their supplies. Both passes were held by their 
trpops, before which the loyal State troops were ready for action. 

At Laurel Hill, in front of Garnett, General Morris, of Indi- 
ana, was in command. At Rich Mountain were stationed 
General McClellan and General Rosecrans. General Hill held 
the railroad from Cheat river, through Grafton to Parkersburo- 
and Wheeling. What followed has been often described. 
Pegram and Garnett were obliged to evacuate their fortified 
position on the mountain crests, by a judicious movement on 
Beverly to their left and rear, which was quickened by an 
assault in front on the nth and 12th of July. Before thev 
could retreat southerly up the valley, Rosecrans must be over- 
come at Beverly. 



8 WAR MEMORANDA. 

The Cheat River mountains, lying between Tygarts and 
Cheat rivers, were not impassable ; but parallel with them at a 
distance of twenty-five or thirty miles, the AUeghanies rise 
much higher, with no cross-roads or passes for a distance of 
fifty miles. About half the Confederate forces were surren- 
dered by Pegram, or were captured among the mountains. 
Every one from general to soldier expected the other half — 
which had fled with Garnett over rough mountain ways to the 
northeast, pressed by Morris with his aide. Captain Benham, 
of the engineers, leading the advance — would surely fall into 
the hands of Hill. Every one, therefore, was chagrined at their 
escape. From the ist to the 8th of July I reconnoitred the 
country east of Grafton, to the foot of the AUeghanies, in an- 
ticipation of a battle and a possible retreat that way. Although 
I partook of the general disappointment, I have never been in- 
clined to censure the commanders for the result. Gen. Morris 
pursued with all the vigor that circumstances permitted. Cap- 
tain, now Gen. Benham, with the advance troops at Corrick's 
ford, did all that could be expected of veterans. The Confed- 
erates, while Garnett lived, and after he was killed, made won- 
derful efforts. They had been in motion from the evening of 
the nth, reaching that river on the morning of the 13th, in 
very stormy weather. Here they were compelled to abandon 
their transportation, and everything except a battery of artil- 
lery, to which they clung with the tenacity of old soldiers. 

It was twenty-five miles from Corrick's ford to the nearest 
pass of the AUeghanies at Red House. Col. Irvine, of fhe 
Sixteenth Ohio, with eighteen or nineteen companies from that 
reo^iment, and from the Eighth and Fifteenth Ohio, was at West 
Union, eight miles west of Red House, on the turnpike from 
Richmond to the Ohio. As soon as the retreat of Garnett was 
known to Gen. McClellan, on the 12th, he telegraphed in the 
most urgent terms to Gen. Hill, at Grafton, that he must cut 
off the fugitives. It was not done. Between 2,500 and 3,000 
of a defeated army, in a disorganized condition, were in a posi- 
tion where escape did not come within the chances of war. 
Garnett's body had been left in our hands, their trains had been 
abandoned and they were encumbered with a battery. Their 



TYGARTS VALLEY CAMPAIGN. 9 

route was never in the condition of a good road ; it was then 
soaked and gulHed by powerful rains. From the evening of 
the nth, when they left Laurel Hill, they had not enjoyed a 
night's repose. 

It is twenty-three miles from Corrick's ford to Red House, 
which is a long day's march on good roads for troops in good 
marching trim. The rear guards were on the Cheat river un- 
til noon of the 13th, and left Red House at 5 a. m. of the 14th. 
During that day they made twenty miles more. They escaped 
by two hours' time. The circumstances of the escape are yet 
under discussion, and effect the reputation of several military 
officers. As the map shows, the Cheat mountains are parallel 
with the Alleghanies, but they are lower, more irregular, and 
have frequent gaps and passes. Cheat river concentrates its 
upper branches five miles south of St. George at Corrick's ford. 
Garnett hurried on through the night of the I2th of July, over 
one of the mountain crests into the valley of the Black fork 
of Cheat river, down it northerly to its mouth and across the 
main river. Ordinarily he would have had great trouble in 
crossing, and would have been caught by the pursuing forces, 
but the rains of the preceding morning had not then swollen 
the stream. It was not, then, a special barrier at that time to 
either party ; but all streams in these regions represent deep 
and narrow valleys, with steep, rugged sides, covered with thick 
timber and rocks. The map explains the main features of the / 
region at a glance. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad passing 
out of the valley of the Potomac, through a grap in the Alle- 
ghanies, across the heads of the Youghiogheny, across the 
Cheat river at Rowlesburg, pursues nearly a west course along 
precipices, through gorges and tunnels, across Tygarts river 
at Grafton, and through Clarksburg to the Ohio at Parkersburg. 
From Rowlesburg through Grafton to Wheeling and to Park- 
ersburg, it was in custody of General Hill and the Ohio troops. 
Nearly parallel with the railroad is the great northwestern "^ 
turnpike, constructed in 1826, from Richmond to Parkersburg, 
through Romneyand a pass of the Alleghanies, east of Red 
House. Crossing the Cheat by a bridge five miles above (that 
is south of) Rowlesburg, thence to Tygarts, three miles below 



10 WAR MEMORANDA. 

Grafton, it reaches Clarksville and Parkersburg. From Staunton, 
Virginia, another turnpike had been built at the same time by 
the State, supervised by the French engineer. General Crozet, 
which crossed the Alleghany mountains at the next practical 
gap, fifty miles south of Red House, near Huttonsville, and led 
thence over Rich mountain through Weston into the north- 
western pike. These were the only good roads of the country, 
and of necessity drew upon these lines the military activity of 
both parties. Away from public highway, the paths, the trails 
and quasi roads in that region, are impracticable to armies with 
their teams. The inhabitants use horses and mules, or oxen 
and sleds, only a few of them are practicable for loaded wheels. It 
is very little these people know of the routes beyond their im- 
mediate neighborhood, and they were not inclined to tell us 
what they did know. To Garnett's fugitives they were more 
communicative. Reliable maps did not exist. 

As chief military engineer of the Ohio troops, I devoted four 
days, from the third to the seventh of July, to the investigation 
of routes between the upper Cheat river and the pass near Red 
House, on which the military questions turn. From St. 
George to Red House there had once been a passable mud 
road, then sadly dilapidated, but not impracticable. Chis- 
holm's mills is on the Richmond turnpike at the Maryland line, 
four miles west of Red House. Four miles farther west, on 
very high grounds, where frost is imminent every month of the 
year, but not as high as the Alleghanies, is the neat German 
hamlet of West Union. From thence to the east and south- 
east, the mountain range is visible like a straight and lofty wall; 
projected upon the sky, without gaps or passes even for a body 
of stragglers. On the 4th of July, with Major Frothingham, 
chief engineer to Gen. Hill's brigade, and Adjutant Marshall 
of Col. Irvine's staff, I reconnoitred to West Union and reported 
that it should be occupied at once. 

Col. Irvine, whose headquarters were at Cheat River bridge, 
immediately sent there Major Bailey of his regiment and two 
companies. There is a road north from St. George, west of 
the river, on which Major Bailey had erected a barricade, ex- 
pecting the enemy by that route. There is no practicable road 



TYGARTS VALLEY CAMPAIGN, 1 1 

down the valley on the east bank from St. George, through 
the gorge to Cheat River bridge. Where the turnpike ascends 
Porcupine mountain, easterly from the river, to West Union, a 
hundred men could arrest the progress of a regiment. It was 
evident that this part of the road should be in our hands. 

About a mile and a half west of West Union, the first road 
from St. George comes in from the south, and here in a log 
barn, which answered the purpose of a block house, we spent 
the night of the 4th-5th of July. In the morning we examined 
the country and the people to the south and east as far as 
Chisholm's mills. The St. George road has three branches be- 
sides the one coming in at the barn, where we were quartered. 
One enters West Union, another comes to the mill; and the 
most easterly or right hand branch strikes the turnpike at Red 
House. Most of the inhabitants concealed themselves from us, 
but those who were willing to communicate, denied that there 
were other roads between this one and the mountain. As we 
expected that Gen. McClellan had already attacked Rich Moun- 
tain, we had a lively interest in all roads between Cheat river 
and the Wildnerness mountain barrier, which rose grandly in 
our front. Oakland was in our possession, situated on the rail- 
road, twenty miles east of Rowlesburg, and only nine miles from 
Red House by a passable road. On the 6th I reported that 
there was no road nearer the mountains, along which the retreat 
from St. George could be effected, and recommended that not 
less than a regiment be posted at the Maryland line, near the 
mill. 

During the next day I was ordered to Clarksburg and Park- 
ersburg, and therefore rely upon sources of information that 
are now public. These are principally Gen. Hill's reports, July 
22, i86i. Gen. McClellan's narrative, 1863, and Gen. Hill's re- 
joinder, November, 1865. On the 9th Col. Irvine suggested to 
Gen. Hill, Red House as "a proper position for our troops," to 
which he (Hill) replied, giving him discretionary powers. Dur- 
ing the attack at Rich Mountain, on the 12th, six companies of 
the 8th Ohio, Col. Dupuy, and the same number from the 15th 
Ohio, Col. Andrews, were sent to him. Col. Irvine reported 
that he should move easterly along the turnpike to Chisholm's 



12 WAR MEMORANDA. 

mills, placing an advance of 200 men at Red House. Gen. Hill 
was advised from headquarters of the retreat of Garnett by the 
way of St. George about noon of the 13th, the message having 
been nearly twenty-four hours on the way. 

Irvine was at once advised of the state of affairs, and the ur- 
gency of the commanding general's orders. Attention had not 
been called to roads more southerly than St. George. Lieu- 
tenant Myers, of Captain Key's cavalry compan}', was scouting 
on this road and its branches from the 8th to the I2th, when 
he was ordered into West Union. He speaks of this road and 
the Horse Shoe route as one, and states that he reported to 
Col. Irvine on the afternoon of the 13th that the enemy were 
retreating along these routes. About sun-down a man came 
in from Rinehard's school-house, and stated that the Rebels 
would pass there that night, and suggested a scout, to which 
Col. Irvine replied that " there were other points of more im- 
portance." What Col. Irvine's information or theory was, 
there is nothing to show. His reports state that he was not 
aware of the farther "Horse Shoe Run" road from Corrick's 
ford to Red House, until about midnight of the 12th- 13th. 
Both himself and Col. Dupuy reconnoitred to the east and 
southeast on the 12th, without discovering that route, a fact so 
fortunate for the enemy and so disastrous to us. He dis- 
patched scouts to the Horse Shoe Run road, and ascertained 
that the fugitives had already passed, at 6: 12 p. m. What point 
on the road they then were we have no means of knowing, but 
it was probably to the southeast of West Union, ten or twelve 
miles from Red House. 

The Federal troops numbered about 1,800, and the Confed- 
erates about "^2,500, some cavalry and a battery of three or five 
guns. Some stragglers were picked up, who had fallen out of 
the column through exhaustion. Under the circumstances pur- 
suit was useless, and the Union force was without teams and 
without rations. The Baltimore and Ohio railroad, to the 
east of Oakland, was cut, and with it the telegraph wires. 
With the greatest exertion it required all that day and the most 

*By Gen. Garnett's returns, dated July 8, 1861, he had at Laurel Hill 3,351 men, at 
Rich Mountain 889, and at Beverly 378 ; aggregate present, 4,618. 



TYGARTS VALLEY CAMPAIGN. I3 

of the next to concentrate the command, numbering 2,400 or 
2,500 men, on the pike, and to supply it with rations. 
Nothing possible was omitted to push the chase, but the move- 
ment had no chances in its favor, and was soon recalled by- 
Gen. McClellan. The main question recurs : was there ground 
for military censure, and, if so, to whom does it apply? The 
pursuit from Laurel Hill to Cheat river was unrelenting, and if 
that stream had been high would have been successful. Beyond 
the river it was impossible to continue it in the condition of the 
troops, the roads and the weather. The condition of the 
enemy was desperate, and the position of our troops on the 
turnpike was such as to quench in them all reasonable hopes. 
To suppose that their presence and condition were unknown to 
the Union troops would be to presume upon fate. Probably 
they expected an attack every mile of the way to Red House, 
and had determined, in that event, to scatter towards the 
mountains. 

I have endeavored to present the material facts of the 
situation, which bear on the charges of neglect of duty. 
Gen. Hill might have surmised a battle and a retreat across the 
Cheat river, but should he be censured for not knowing these 
facts prior to the receipt of the dispatch at noon of the 13th? 
Before that date he could not determine on what point to con- 
centrate his command, which at that time was very much scat- 
tered. Gen. McClellan had required the line of the railroad to 
be guarded from Oakland to Parkersburg — over one hundred 
miles — and had also required him to provide for a retreat. The 
theory was that, in case of a defeat on our part, there would be 
at once a dash for the railroad by the Confederates, at some point 
west of Grafton. Gen. Hill and Col. Irvine, who held the respon- 
sible place at the front, were both of this opinion. After the re- 
treat was known, they had good reasons to conclude that the en- 
tire Rebel force was across (viz. east of) the Cheat river. Although 
the facts, as now developed, show that during the 13th and 14th, 
one regiment could have captured and dispersed the remnant of 
this army, these facts were not then known. Was it culpable 
negligence that the "Horse-Shoe Run" road had not been dis- 
covered? Viewed under the later experience of the war, this 



/ 



14 WAR MEMORANDA. 

would probably be answered in the affirmative. It was certainly 
within the possibilities of the case that between the 8th and 
13th a more extended reconnoissance should have been made 
to the east and south, extending to the foot of the mountains* 
But Col. Irvine does not appear to have regarded this as the 
important point. His judgment was at fault in this respect, or 
turned in the wrong direction ; but was that culpable neglect ? 
Having determined, on the receipt of the latest dispatch or 
perhaps before, to move to Red House, why that movement 
was not executed with more rapidity is nowhere explained. 

When Maj. Walcut reached Chisholm's mills, at 4 a. m. of the 
14th, the Rebels were at Red House, four miles east, and Col. 
Irvine was then on the turnpike, west of the mill. At that 
hour the escape was complete. It can easily be accounted for 
by a series of events which favored the Confederates : First, 
the delay of the first telegram from McClellan to Hill ; second, 
the late hour of the receipt of the second dispatch relating to> 
Corrick's ford; third, the belief, up to that moment, that the 
line of retreat would be north instead of east ; fourth, incom- 
plete information as to the roads from Cheat river to the turn- 
pike. If a court of inquiry had been convened, as Gen. Hill 
demanded, it is now plain that it would have refrained from 
positive censure. If Gen. McClellan should now go over the 
facts of the case, unaffected by the disappointment of the mo- 
ment, he would doubtless come to the same conclusion. 

With all the information given by the official reports on both 
sides, it is even yet doubtful to whom belongs the credit of con- 
ducting the march after the death of Gen. Garnett. About 2 
o'clock p. M. of the 14th, the main body was four miles below 
Corrick's ford. Col. Ramsey of the First Georgia regiment 
was the ranking officer, from whom there is no report. Col. 
Taliaferro of the 23d Virginia, in command of the rear guard, 
in his report intimates that he had very little to do with the re- 
treat. Gen. Jackson's report, made at Monterey, does not 
speak in flattering terms of the First Georgia, or its comman- 
der. Gen. Garnett's ranking aide was Col. Stokes, from whom* 
no report has yet appeared. 



.TYGARTS VALLEY CAMPAIGN. 1 5 

The command turned eastward up the valley of Horse Shoe 
run, a few miles south of St. George, and labored onward 
over an execrable road during the night unmolested to Red 
House. It rested half an hour between 4 and 5 a. m. of the 
15th, when it was aroused and struggled onward along the north- 
western turnpike. The Federal troops were at length on the 
alert, but from tour to five miles in the rear. That night the Con- 
federates reached Greenland in Virginia, beyond the Alleghany 
mountains, where they had the first night's rest since leaving 
Laurel Hill on the night of the Iith-I2th. Thence they 
headed southward up the valley of one of the branches of the 
Potomac, through Petersburg and Franklin to the Staunton 
turnpike at Monterey, having been on the march for seven 
days. From Beverly by the pike to Monterey, over Cheat 
mountain, is sixty or sixty-five miles. By the circuitous 
route, northeast to St. George, thence easterly to Red House 
and Greenland, and southerly to their rendezvous, is not far 
from one hundred and fifty miles, through a rough country 
where supplies were not to be had. There are no roads or gaps 
in the solid wall of the uninhabitable Alleghany mountains for 
a distance of fifty miles, through which they could have escaped, 
and nothing on which they could subsist. If there was no ac- 
knowledged leader, the success of this retreat by militia, with- 
out experience ;n war, is still more to the credit of the men in 
the ranks. 



1 6 WAR MEMORANDA. 



J 



CHAPTER II. 



ON THE KANAWHA, JULY AND AUGUST, 1 86 1. 

A DIVISION under Gen. Cox was sent into the valley of the 
Great Kanawha, early in July, to check the Rebel forces under 
Henry A. Wise. It was intended by Gen. McClellan, as an 
important demonstration, composed principally of Ohio troops. 
A turnpike extended from Charleston up the river, on the east 
side passing the salt works to the mouth of Gauley river, and 
crossing this stream upon a high bridge, it bore away over the 
mountains southeasterly to the Virginia and East Tennessee 
railroad. The Rebel forces acting against us, from Huttonsville 
through Beverly towards Philippi, were in communication with 
Gen. Wise, who held a detached command. If Pegram and 
Garnett should succeed in overcoming the Union forces, and 
getting through the Cheat River mountains, they would cut the 
Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and probably reach the forks of the 
Ohio. Gen. Wise had already sent guerilla parties to the Ohio 
river. He thus held the valley as low down as Pocatoligo 
creek. General Garnett and Col. Pegram were disposed of at 
Rich Mountain. I found Gen. Cox at Pocatoligo on the 15th 
of July. His force was about 3200 infantry, one company cavalry, 
and Captain Cotters' battery of six rifled pieces. Col. Wood- 
ruff's Kentucky regiment (I think the second) had entered the 
State near the mouth of the Guyandotte, and passing through 
Barboursville, had come overland to the Kanawha. A spirited 
and very creditable affair occurred at Barboursville, where the 
Kentucky troops charged across a bridge, and scattered the 
Rebel guerillas. While Gen. Cox lay at Red House, a day's 
march below Pocatoligo, the Twenty-first Ohio, under Col. 
Norton, had been sent up the river to Scarey's run. Col. 
Norton, finding there were intrenchments and artillery, of 



ON THE KANAWHA, JULY AND AUGUST, 1861. I7 

which he had none, did not consider the attack feasible. The 
Kanawha river is usually navigable to Charleston, and in high 
water to the falls below Gauley bridge. 

When the water is low, small boats are able to work over the 
ripples by the help of capstans. The State of Virginia had made 
artificial channels at some of the rapids. There is scarcely any 
stage of the river, that small steamers cannot reach Charleston, 
moving by daylight and working through the channels. From 
Buffalo and Red House, or Wingfield, high bluffs came down 
on one side or the other, near to the river, completely com- 
manding it. The roads along the banks were rough. If a de- 
termined use had been made of the men opposed to us, these 
defiles would each one of them require a battle. The advant- 
ages of position from Buffalo to Gauley gave Gen. Wise a ma- 
terial strength four times our own. He had recently been on 
a raid to Ripley with 1,400 men, but withdrew to Charleston 
as Cox moved up the river. By the report of our spies he had 
2,825 men. They were independent militia or volunteer 
companies, whose name and number we obtained in detail. 
Among them were the Richmond Blues, Captain Wise, the 
New River Tigers, the Border Rifles, Kanawha Rifles and 
Shaw's Sharpshooters. Our most reliable spy was in person 
a typical Englishman, but wholly American in blood. He ap- 
peared in Charleston in a carriage, travelling in state as a for- 
eigner, thoroughly hating the Yankees. His room at the hotel 
was next to that of Gen. Wise, whose confidence he acquired. 
He made violent speeches to the troops. The official reports 
to the adjutant-general were shown him, and he returned in 
his carriage toward the mountains. 

The recently published report of Gen. Wise for July 8, 1861, 
showed an aggregate of 2708. His official letters denounce the 
inhabitants and the militia. He says "the Kanawha valley is re- 
bellious," and that ' ' 300 or 500 of the State troops have deserted. 
When true they are worthy, but I cannot tell who is true," 
Their shoes were torn off their feet, and the clothes from their 
backs. He had neither artillery nor ammunition. 

A patriotic Union man joined us at Parkersburg, having been 
driven from his home by Wise's men who threatened to hang 



I 8 WAR MEMORANDA. 

him. For a week he had been " refugeing " in the woods and glens 
of West Virginia, with his neighbors on the hunt for him. At 
PocatoHgo he was joined by a neighbor equally ready for 
any enterprise against these freebooters. I would like to 
name these men, because among the professed Unionists of West 
Virginia, very few at that time were ready to defend them- 
selves or assist us in doing it. These two were always pres- 
ent, gun in hand, whenever an advance was made or an expedi- 
tion started. On the i6th Gen. Cox determined to make an- 
other attempt on Scarey's run. Our camp was in a cornfield 
on the east side of the river, just below the mouth of PocatoHgo, 
which the inhabitants call "Pokey." Scarey's run is on the 
western shore, four miles above. The road along the west bank 
being very rough, another one was selected through the hills, 
making the distance about six miles. Gen. Wise had destroyed 
the bridge across PocatoHgo, but the water was low enough for a 
ford though a difficult one. 

Col. Norton and Major Hinds were the only officers who had 
reconnoitred Scarey's run. Gen. Cox intended to go with the 
expedition, but on the morning of the 17th concluded to place 
it in the hands of Col. Lowe, of the 12th Ohio. Having con- 
versed with Col. Norton on the character of the ground, I was 
solicitious that his regiment should accompany us, and on the 
evening of the i6th supposed it would do so. When the 
movement commenced I perceived that the 21st was not in it, 
but only the 1 2th and a portion of Cotter's battery. Col. Norton 
was anxious to go, and at my request was allowed to do so, but 
with only two companies of his command. Capt^n Gibb's 
chief commissary, Lieutenant Rosa, his adjutant and myself 
crossed the river with Col. Norton's battalion as amateurs 
without commands. It was near eleven o'clock a. m., before 
the 1 2th regiment, Col. Lowe, overtook us. I asked him if he 
would be followed by a reserve, to which he replied he so un- 
derstood it. 

Col. Norton's command deployed under Major Hinds as 
skirmishers and the command advanced. It was necessary to 
move cautiously, since most of the country was covered with 
Sfrowing timber. In the few cabins along the road were 



ON THE KANAWHA, JULY AND AUGUST, 1 86 1. 1 9 

women and children begging for protection. Their natural 
protectors were in the enemy's works at points further up the 
river. It was three o'clock p. m., when the skirmishers emerged 
into open fields, receiving the fire of the Rebel pickets. Major 
Hinds rode back exclaiming "we have flushed the infernal 
scoundrels." Our troops closed up and pressed on along the 
road, to a small church within cannon range. Their two pieces 
were iron six pounders, which opened upon us with round shot 
and afterwards with grape ; but their shots were wild, striking 
the ground far in our rear. Our line was formed on the left of 
the road towards the river, near the north bank of Scarey's run, 
partly protected by a rise of ground, by a fence, a field ofcorn 
and some houses on a level with the enemy's guns. While this 
was being done, a detachment of Captain Gray's company of 
cavalry, in command of a lieutenant, rode forward to the houses, 
supposing they were occupied by the Rebel pickets. Seeing 
this the enemy discharged their guns with grape, killing one of 
the mounted men. Captain Cotter's section of rifled sixes re- 
turned their fire from a point near the church in front of our 
right. He did it so effectively that in twenty minutes both 
their guns were silenced. Col. Norton and Major White, chaf- 
ing under what they considered a slight by Gen, Cox, filed 
away to the left with their battalion down the bluff towards the 
river, and thence along the bank, to charge the buildings on the 
river bank from which the Rebels were firing on us. 

To aid this charge, Captain Cotter moved his pieces from the 
right to the left of the line, and gave those buildings a few 
shots. Col. Norton and his men reached them about the same 
time, driving the Rebel troops out and across the bridge over 
Scarey's run. As they hastened along the road enveloped in 
dust, a coatless boy of about i6 years, carrying a gun, fell behind. 
One of our two Union marksmen took sight upon his back 
where the suspendeis cross. The boy fell immediately and was 
left in the road. 

A few days afterwards, as we were entering Charleston, the 
same sharpshooter stopped at a house for a drink of water. He 
heard the owner of the premises describe this boy as his son, 
whom the Yankees had murdered. A severe fire was kept up 



20 WAR MEMORANDA. 

on our position from the rifle pits, at a distance of about 250 
yards. Col. Norton held the buildings at the bridge until 4:30 
p. M., when a heavy reinforcement was seen coming from the 
enemy's camp at Coal Mouth. They had with them an iron 
ten-pounder. Major Hinds desired the commander to give him 
three or four companies for a flank movement to our right, 
across the run, up a mountain commanding the rifle pits. Col. 
Lowe gave the order to two of his captains on our right, one of 
whom I found with part of his men behind a corn crib, and he 
refused to go. Major Hinds started down the bluff with less 
than three companies, when the party from Coal Mouth threw 
themselves upon Col. Norton and Major "White, who found it 
necessary to abandon the buildings. Their safest and best 
route of escape was up the creek, close under the south bluffs 
across our front. On that side the bank is so steep that the men 
in the rifle pits could not reach them effectively. Here Col. 
Norton was severely wounded and disabled. 

The Rebel reinforcements were about equal to their original 
force, which I estimated at 350 to 400. On the supposition that 
we also should receive reinforcements, Captain Gibbs, thinking 
he saw the smoke of boats coming up the river, went down the 
bank to meet them. Matters were going on so well, that we 
felt sure of success as soon as Major Hinds should reach his po- 
sition on the hill. Col. Norton's command rejoined us, leaving 
him in the hands of the enemy, because he could not be moved. 
While Major Hinds was crowding down the mountain, com- 
pletely commanding every part of the Rebel line, a part of our 
men ceased firing. Their cartridges were exhausted. It then 
appeared that only twenty (20) rounds per man had been issued, 
and eighty rounds for the field pieces. Captain Cotter had only 
three shots left. The men began to show signs of giving way. 
We encouraged them to hold out, as we should soon have aid 
from the camp. In fifteen minutes more the enemy must have 
been driven out by Hinds. I went to the bluff near the river 
but could see no boats. When I returned a retreat had com- 
menced, attended by general confusion. It was now 5:30 
o'clock, the firing having lasted one hour and fifty minutes. The 
men were greatly exhausted under a hot sun without water. 



FIELD OF SCAREY'S RUN, WEST VIRGINIA. 
Affair of July 17, i86i. 

Scale 200 yards to the inch. 




A A. — Rebel line of infantry, two guns and rifle pits. 

1 I. — Col. Lowe's first position with the guns. 

2 2. — Col. Lowe's second position with the guns. 

a a. — Houses, mill and bridge captured by Col. Norton. 
b. — Barn where the Rebel pickets were met. 
B. — Major Hinds' position. 



ON THE KANAWHA, JULY AND AUGUST, 1861. 21 

The Rebels did not follow. Major Hinds continued his fire from 
the woods, on the mountain until our line was entirely gone. 

Their iron ten-pounder did us very little harm, as it remained 
at the mouth of the run firing round shot, which went over our 
heads. Lieut. -Col. Tompkins, who commanded the Rebel camp 
at the mouth of Coal river, was not present. Captain (or 
Major) Patten was their ranking officer. He was badly wounded 
in the arm and taken to the same house wit'a Col. Norton. Cap- 
tain Jenkins was riding madly about, exposing himself 
in the most reckless manner. No eftort was made by them to 
disturb Major Hinds, who withdrew and joined us in the woods. 

There were on our side nine killed and twelve wounded. To 
bring away our injured men we had only one waoon, into 
w^hich they were hastily piled and hurried to the rear. Surgeon 
Trotter, of one of the Kentucky regiments, exerted himself 
nobly for these suffering men. No water could be had to 
cleanse them of dirt and blood. The teamsters w^ould have 
left many of them on the field, had not Dr. Trotter and Major 
Hinds made the utmost exertions in their behalf I found 
Captain Sloane, of Gallipolis, under some trees at the extreme 
right of our last position, apparently expiring. A bullet struck 
him at the pit of the stomach, which appeared to go directly 
into his body. The men who were carrying him, supposing 
him to be dead, had laid him down. They were ordered to take 
him to the church, v/here the surgeon was receiving the 
wounded. I heard no more of Captain Sloane, supposing he 
was dead, until three weeks afterwards, when he reported for 
duty. The bullet did not strike him direct, but obliquely, and, 
passing around outside the ribs, did not enter the vital parts. 
Captain Allen, of the Twenty-first, was mortally wounded near 
the mouth of the creek. As it was reported that Col. Norton 
was being brought up the hill, his horse, fully caparisoned, was 
left there and fell into the enemy's hands. Col. Norton was en- 
tirely helpless, but was well treated and sent to our lines on 
parole. Gen. Wise came down from Charleston the same 
evening, and first heard from him the results of the battles at 
Laurel Hill and Rich Mountain, He perceived that this news 
materially affected his stay in the Kanawha valley. 



22 WAR MEMORANDA. 

Before the sun went down the Rebels had reoccupled the 
buildings and set fire to them, under the belief that we would 
renew the attack early the next morning. Our disorganized 
command hurried on, tired, thirsty and exhausted, as though 
they expected a charge on their rear every moment. Until it 
began to grow dark we expected to meet reinforcements with 
ammunition. About that time I left the troops, and, hurrying 
on, met the remainder of Col. Norton's regiment about two 
miles from camp, in command of Lieut. -Col. Niblack. It was 
evident nothing could be done without more ammunition. A 
party, consisting of two colonels, a major and two captains, were 
on a tour of observation up the river on the east side of the 
battle ground ; as they claim, under orders. Seeing the build- 
ings on fire they supposed our side the victors. They crossed 
in a canoe to the west side, where one of the colonels, seeing a 
group of men near the burning buildings, began to compliment 
them on their victory. The Rebels very soon convinced them 
of their mistake, by taking the entire party into custody as 
prisoners. They were hurried over the mountains to Rich- 
mond. 

The following is a Confederate soldier's account of the engage- 
ment: 

July the 23rd 1 86 1. 

kanawha Co Charleston Va 
Dear sister there was A Severe batel took place down below Coals mouth on the Seven, 
tenth of this month at which ther were 3. killed and 9. wounded two of which has since 
died one was James Welch A lieutenant of the artilery company he was brought up to 
Charleston and we had the honor of the burial according to the honors of war. the north 
thev lost it is said 260 killed and it is not known how many wounded they retreated and 
since that they have been reinforct and it is e.Kpected that there will be another batel be- 
fore many days the force was from two thousand to twenty five hundred our men took five 
of their officers, one of them was one of their Colonel's one of the officers states that he 
thot that god was reigning bullets from heaven as he couldent see were else they come 
from we had A bout had them Whipt when the rest got there. 

Gen. McClellan was very much dissatisfied with the result at 
Scarey's run, and the inactivity afterwards, doing great injustice 
to Gen. Cox. We certainly had men enough to have taken 
that place. Coal Mouth and Charleston, by operating on the 
west side of the river, but there was not ammunition enough for 
even a short campaign. Without his determination to with- 
draw, Gen. Wise could have been gradually pushed be)^ond 



ON THE KANAWHA, JULY AND AUGUST, 1 86 1. 2$ 

Sewell mountain, unless he had been reinforced. It would have 
required much fighting by detachments and many^flanking par- 
ties, all of which was saved by his retreat. 

Our outposts, three miles up the river, nearly opposite 
Scarey's run, were threatened on the i8th, and their picket 
guard at a tobacco barn about a mile further on, was driven in. 

In Gen. Wise's report to Richmond of the affair at Scarey's 
run, he refers to an expedition of the next day under Col. 
McCausland, in two parties of 150 and 650 men each, who 
drove us into our intrenchments at Pocatoligo. Pocatoligo was 
not intrenched, nor did McCausIand's command come within 
sight of our camp. The general says the Richmond Blues, 
being with McCausland (commanded by his son. Captain 
Wise), were ordered to "put the cold steel of their bayonets 
into their (the Yankees) teeth." 

On the 24th of July Gen. Cox moved on Charleston. A 
little past noon the command halted at a cross-road to commu- 
nicate with the boats. The water on the rapids was too low to 
allow them to pass. About 3 p. m. we reached Tyler's creek 
and mountain. Here a slight bridge was burning but caused 
us no delay. Around the end of the mountain, to the left, on 
the Charleston side, between the bluffs and the river, an infantry 
breastwork had been built, which was hastily abandoned. Still 
hoping for the boats to arrive, a halt was rnade here. It was 
faint twilight when a steamer was seen slowly advancing up a 
long reach in the river, which our guns covered. The atmos- 
phere was perfectly still, her flag hung at the staff, not a fold 
unfurled, and in the increasing darkness it was difficult to de- 
cide what she was. Captain Cotter trained his battery on her 
fire boxes, but the general impression was that she belonged to 
our fleet. Our pickets were ranged along the shore, nearly 
opposite the boat, which showed signs of hesitation. On the 
other shore, partially concealed, were troops, who shouted, 
"Hurrah for Jeff Davis." Our pickets responded with the 
same, which seemed to satisfy those on the boat, which was 
then within rifle range of our batteries. A large man, not in 
uniform, on a white horse, rode through a corn-field nearly to 
the river, and examined us a few moments. He wheeled 



24 WAR MEMORANDA. 

suddenly, the steamboat reversed her engines and backed down 
stream. Instantly Captain Cotter's guns opened on her, but 
she made fast to the other bank, where a number of men and 
horses jumped ashore. They set up a shout and 'disappeared 
in the darkness. This yell of defiance drew upon them a num- 
ber of shots at random screaming over their ;^heads, which pro- 
bably did them no harm. Their response, coming to us through 
the heavy night air, was " Hurrah for Georgia," and more tan- 
talizing than before. They were the last of the camp at Coal 
Mouth, now St. Albans Station, on the Chesapeake & Ohio 
railroad. The boat was on fire in several places, fitfully illumi- 
nating the shores and trees, but was soon consumed. If our 
boats had got up, or had there been any means of crossing the 
river, we could have;^been in Charleston that night. In the 
morning we had not advanced far when a deputation of 
municipal officers and citizens came to surrender the town. 

Gen. Wise and the troops on the river had left at lo the even- 
ing before, and marched twelve miles, when they halted for 
breakfast. At Two Mile creek was a rude cantonment for 
about five hundred men. As the suspension: bridge over the 
Elk river, into Charleston, was nearly demolished, it was nearly 
noon before our troops got over, some in boats and others by 
the bridge. The march was continued about fifteen miles that 
afternoon. At Maiden, a city of salt boilers, we were received 
with the most vociferous demonstrations. 

Gen. Wise, in his report from near Louisburg, August ist, 
says: 

My situation in the Kanawha Valley was critical in the extreme. After the Scarey run 
affair the enemy fell back and were strongly reinforced. They increased to five thousand. 
* * * I found they were collecting fifteen thousand men at Weston, moving to 
Summerville, at the same time moving up the Kanawha, and gunning me at any point I 
might occupy, * * * In thirty minutes after we fell back from Tyler's moun- 
tain they took possession and nearly succeeded in cutting off seven hundred of Col. Tomp- 
kin's command at Coal. They escaped and burned the steamer on which they were mov- 
ing up the river. 

If he had not been in so great haste to escape, the 
cliffs overhanging our route from Charleston, to the mouth 
of Gauley enabled him to obstruct our march every day, and 
nearly every mile. In the matter of hinderance they made 
each of his men equal to ten of ours. We might have been de- 



ON THE KANAWHA, JULY AND AUGUST, 1861. 25 

tained two weeks, but no material obstruction was offered, and 
we reached the mouth of Gauley on the 27th. The long cov- 
ered bridge on which the turnpike to the valley of Green Brier 
crossed the Gauley, was not entirely consumed. On it the 
enemy had left a large number of old regulation muskets, made 
in 1802, which the State of Virginia had preserved for emergen- 
cies like this. The bayonets were about two feet in length. 
There were also accoutrements and supplies burned with the 
bridge. 

Not long after reaching Gauley, Gen. Cox and staff made a 
call at a fine plantation about half way from that place to Hawks 
Nest. It appeared to be abandoned, but the lady of the house 
made her appearance in a genteel costume, agreeable and at- 
tractive in manner, who had an excellent lunch brought out for 
us. From her conversation we learned that the man on the 
white horse across the river at Tyler's mountain, was her hus- 
band, Col. Tompkins. She besought Gen. Cox not to hurt him, 
if they should meet again. He was a West Point graduate, who, 
like nearly all those from Virginia, proved traitors to their flag and 
country. One of his guerilla squads, while the firing was going 
on at Scarey's run, scouted along the road from Coal Mouth 
west to the waters of the Guyandotte, stripping the inhabitants 
of everything to which they took a fancy, shooting or capturing 
such as they suspected of Union sentiments. Gen. Wise was 
followed by us no farther than Sewell mountain. A large part 
of Floyd's brigade were in the neighborhood of Gauley river at 
Twenty-mile creek, and at Carnifex ferry, about forty miles east 
of the mouth. The 7th and 13th Ohio were sent there, but 
were soon overpowered at Cross Lanes. On the 26th of Aug- 
ust Gen. Rosecrans, coming up from Weston, met and fought 
Floyd on the loth day of September. 

A gentleman from Kentucky had an establishment for dis- 
tilling coal tar from cannel coal on Elk river, a few miles east 
of Charleston. While we were scrutinizing the boat with the 
rear guard of Col. Tompkin's regiment, this gentleman was 
undergoing an examination at Gen. Wise's headquarters. Said 
he: "I can stand a Yankee abolitionist with his hands under 
his coat-tails ; but, by God, I can't stand a Kentucky abo- 



26 WAR MEMORANDA. 

litionist, and you ought to be hung. But I will for the present 
send you to Richmond." 

At this point the report of Captain Cotter's guns playing 
upon the steamer, reached the general's ears and interrupted 
his remarks. "What is that firing?" When told it was the 
Yankees, he replied: "I can't attend to you any longer; get 
ready my carriage and keep it at the door." In the confusion 
of the evening the Kentucky abolitionist escaped, and came to 
our lines. To our men the most disagreeable part of their 
duty was the execution of Gen. McClellan's order, to protect 
private property. In the cellar of a rich widow lady, who 
owned a large farm on the bottom land of the Kanawha, were 
several hogsheads of sugar, left by Gen. Wise in payment for 
supplies. Over this a guard was placed. Though the inhabi- 
tants were not ready to do much for the Rebel cause, they 
would do less for ours. At Gauley a roughlooking crowd 
came over from Paint Creek for an interview with Gen. Cox. 
They asked for protection and provisions. When called upon 
to enlist, not one of them came forward. 

Later in the season our troops occupied Fayette and Raleigh 
counties west of the New river, as far as Flat Top mountains. 



CAPTURE OF DONELSON. 2'J 



CHAPTER III. 



CAPTURE OF DONELSON. 

There has been much and very spirited discussion in regard 
to the origin of the movement up the Tennessee and Cumber- 
land rivers in February, 1862. Connected with this route 
there was so many advantages, that it might have occurred to 
any mihtary man who reflected upon the situation. 

General Sherman, in his "Mihtary Memoirs," refers to a 
meeting in St. Louis at Gen. Halleck's headquarters, about 
midwinter of 1861-62, when Gen. Cullum was present, as 
though the plan originated there. The records show that some- 
time in November Gen. Buell suggested to Gen. McClellan a 
movement to turn Bowling Green by the west, between it and 
the Cumberland, the supplies to be taken up that river in boats. 

On the files of the War Department and in volume five of 
the official war reports of both armies, now being published by 
Government, will be found a letter of mine of November 
20, 1862, which was received and placed on file the next day at 
St. Louis. It suggested a movement by land between the Cum- 
berland and the Tennessee, the flanks to be covered by gun- 
boats, and the supplies to be carried on transports. 

In December, 1861, Gen. Grant, without consultation with 
his superiors, quietly made preparations for a march on Fort 
■Henry or Fort Donelson. On the 31st of December President 
Lincoln became annoyed at the inactivity of our armies, and 
telegraphed to Buell and Halleck to know if they were co-oper- 
ating. Both of them replied that they were not acting in 
concert. They then began to get acquainted, but Hal- 
leck says there were only troops enough to threaten Columbus 
Kentucky; and when on the 3d of January, Gen. Buell presses 
for a movement the answer was, that "it was madness to move 



28 WAR MEMORANDA. 

on Columbus." On the 6th oi January Gen. Grant wished to 
discuss the movement which he afterwards made, and could not 
get a hearing. At headquarters sixty thousand men were 
required for that plan. Early in February the President per- 
emptorily directed all the armies to move before the 22d of that 
month. Grant was in readiness. Fort Henry was captured on 
the 6th, and with not more than twenty thousand men he 
invested Fort Donelson on the I2th. The conception of the 
plan did not certainly originate with a group of officers at St. 
Louis, as late as "midwinter." It was steadily hindered there 
until after the President's order. 

Our transports reached Paducah on the afternoon of the 13th, 
a balmy and spring-like day. Twenty-four hours before. Gen. 
Lew Wallace's division had come out of the Tennessee river, 
under orders to go up the Cumberland. We were directed to 
follow. At sundown our boats, heading into the Cumberland 
at Smithland, encountered a rushing flood. Loaded to the 
guards with men, horses, tents, wagons, munitions and supplies, 
they labored slowly against the current. It became more and 
more formidable as we advanced, until the engines were scarcely 
able to overcome the rapid flowing waters. The hurricane deck 
and the smoke stack were often whipped by branches of over- 
hanging trees. 

At dawn of St. Valentine's day we were at Eddyville, 
a distance of only forty-five miles by river. A heavy fall 
of rain followed the gentle weather of Thursday, which changed 
to a furious snow storm during the night. The muddy waters 
spread over the low grounds, surrounding most of the cabins 
which stood in small clearings on the higher ground. Most of 
them were deserted. The negroes and farm stock were huddled 
together on the dry land about the premises. The colored 
people shouted, danced and waved their handkerchiefs in a most 
extravagant manner. Occasionally a thinly clad, shivering, 
half-starved white refugee came furtively through the bushes to 
the water's edge, begging piteously to be taken on board. 
When the yawls were sent for them they were received by our 
men in a decidedly brotherly way. As soon as hot coffee and 
rations had revived their spirits and their confidence, they 



SKETCH OF THE FIELD. 

This plan is from a hasty sketch by myself, corrected by Col. Webster of General 
Grant's staff, also by Col. Hanson and Major Shoop of the Confederate service. 

Scale I mile to the inch. 




a. — Position of the Gun Boats, Feb. 14. 
b. — Fort Donelson. 
c. — Road to the Transports, 4 miles, 
d. — Road to Fort Henry, 12 miles. 
^ — Farm houses used as Hospitals. 



A. — General Grant's headquarters. 
B. — General Smith's Division. 
C. — General Wallace's Division. 
D. — General McClernand's Division. 
E. — Col. Steadman's position. 



CAPTURE OF DONELSON. 2g 

invariably began the recital of their persecutions. Some of 
them had been in the woods a fortnight. These recitals would 
at the present time excite the sympathy of the men who hunted 
them through the woods, as their ancestors had hunted sav- 
ages. To our men the details of their sufferings, on account of 
their adhesion to the Government, appeared at first incredible, 
but it soon aroused a spirit of retaliation. A "butternut," 
who was recognized by one of the refugees, rode along the bank 
of the river apparently on a tour of observation. Having fin- 
ished his scout, he began to insult the Union troops. More than 
one musket on the lower deck covered him in an instant, and, 
as he wheeled his horse for a rapid flight, three shots followed, 
and his horse ran off without a rider. 

About 3 p. M. we could distinguish faintly the boom of Com- 
modore Foot's guns. When we reached the landing, three 
miles below Fort Donelson, the sun was low in the west. The 
mortar boats were throwing shells from behind a bend in the 
river, over a wooded hill, into the enemy's camp. Just above 
the mortars two of the gunboats were floating slowly down 
stream in a disabled condition. Two others were replying to 
Fort Donelson and the water batteries. All the iron clads 
dropped down to the position of the transports as soon as the 
■disabled ones were out of range. 

Fort Donelson was a regular fortress, occupying the undulat- 
ing surface of a hill, having four bastions, with an artillery para- 
pet and embrasures. The ditch was not impassable, but there 
was an infantry banquette, the interior slope neatly reveted 
with native cane from swamps across the Cumberland. 

There were comfortable cabins of pine logs, arranged in 
streets, capable of sheltering about two thousand men. The 
work was constructed by Gen. Tilghman. Only a few shots 
from the rifled guns of Commodore Foot hit the walls, but 
those which did went easily through, making a breach wide 
enough for a file of men to march in. The force of his heavy 
missiles was so little checked by the parapet that they went on 
over the Confederate lines into our camps. 

The Emma Graham crowded herself between the transports 
far enough to allow our horses to get ashore. Following the 



30 WAR MEMORANDA. 

trail of Wallace's division, Adjutant Owens and myself rode for- 
ward in a search of the headquarters. Our animals were in 
good plight, delighted to be once more on land, and spurning 
mud and snow bore us rapidly along over a horrible route. 
Twilight was settling into the valleys when we brought up at a 
comfortable house on the south bank of a rivulet, represented 
on the map as "Grant's headquarter's." It was built of hewed 
logs two stories high, with a garden and orchard attached. The 
fences had disappeared, with the exception of some posts that 
enclosed a garden. 

As no one was to be seen we hitched to a peach tree, and 
going in found only an orderly. A fire was blazing on the 
ample hearth of a stone chimney, which constitutes the most 
striking feature of a Southern home. About dark a group of 
officers rode up and entered the house. 

In the fall of 1861, while encamped on the lines back of Cov- 
ington, an old gentleman, in feeble health, frequently rode along 
the roads attended by his two daughters. One of them per- 
formed the part of driver to a plain and easy carriage, moving 
always at a slow pace. The young ladies were interesting, and 
took a personal interest in our sick soldiers. It was not long 
before the old gentleman made mention of a son, who was then 
in the army, of whom he appeared to be very hopeful and 
whom he called Ulysses. The name of my aged friend was 
Jesse R. Grant. There were very few pleasant days when we 
did not see the old carriage, the old gentleman, and one or both 
of the daughters. 

When my regiment was sent to Paducah a number of mes- 
sages were sent to Ulysses by the family. The smallest and 
least noticeable officer sat down to a coarse table and dictated 
an order, by the light of a tallow dip. Not having before seen 
Gen. Grant, I enquired for the commanding officer, and was 
introduced to the quiet man at the table. My orders were to- 
remain in the boat till morning, and then join Gen. McClernand 
on the extreme right. I delivered the messages from his father 
and sisters, which were received without remarks. I was 
directed to inform Commodore Foote, of whose failure there 
was then no certain advices, that his eleven-inch shells passed 



CAPTURE OF DONELSON. 3 I 

over the enemy's works^and exploded in our camp, which he 
said was disagreeable. 

I ascertained that the day had been spent on our part in get- 
ting the troops into position. McClernand occupied the extreme 
right, Wallace the centre and C. F. Smith the left. Gen. Smith's 
headquarters were not far from the cabin, under a thick-topped 
oak, at the foot of which was a fire and a wooden settee. Com- 
modore Foot had expected to drive the enemy from Fort Don- 
elson, as he had at Fort Henry. His plan was feasible, for he 
had only to pass the water batteries and thus take three-fourths 
of the fort in reverse. I learned afterwards from Captain Ross, 
of the Confederate service, who commanded their middle bat- 
teries, the cause of the commodore's failure. 

They had judiciously placed in it their heaviest gun, an one 
hundred and twenty-pounder rifle. Captain Ross, instead of 
loading her shells with powder, filled the cavity with lead. Our 
iron clads were then plated with two and one-half inch {2}4 
inch) metal only, and these missiles, fired at four hundred 
yards, from ground elevated thirty feet above the water, went 
through the boats from stem to stern. The Rebel gunners, 
after discharging their piece, could hear the crashing of timbers 
and machinery in the commodore's fleet. These heavy shot 
fulfilled their mission. Without this gun probably one-half the 
vessels could have run the fire of the smaller pieces, which were 
most of them thirty-pound parrots. If the commodore could 
have run six hundred yards further with only one boat, the fort 
would have been untenable. The engagement turned on his 
being unable to place himself abreast the water batteries. His 
own shot tore large gaps in their parapets, but this had no 
result. In the water batteries no one was killed. 

Soon after daylight on Friday, the Twentieth Ohio regi- 
ment, having formed in the snow and mud, started for its 
position on the lines. As the sun rose we met Gen. Grant and 
one aide, crashing through the bushes by the side of the column 
on a visit to Commodore Foot, who was wounded. Mc- 
Clernand, seven miles away, had been attacked half an hour 
before, but no sound of the conflict reached us. Gen. Grant 
did not then know of it. While the regiment was wading along 



32 WAR MEMORANDA. 

this execrable route, over which ten thousand men and their 
trains had waded the day before, I had an opportunity to ex- 
amine the topography of the country. The crest of a ridge, 
which comes down to the river above the landing, is about 
eight hundred yards from the fort, and a little higher. Be- 
tween this crest and Donelson is a valley and a brook, into 
which the high water of the river set back half a mile. There 
were two Ohio regiments in the woods on this ridge, one of 
them commanded by Col. William Steadman. They could do 
nothing but observe, although the Rebel works were plainly 
under their eyes. Fort Donelson stands on the crest of a cor- 
responding ridge higher up the river across the valley, atan ele- 
vation of about one hundred feet above high water. The 
course of the river under the fort is about west, but it makes 
an abrupt angle to the north between it and our landing. 
Above is another cross valley, and another rivulet with deep 
water, running into the Cumberland from the south. On the 
east bluff of this valley, near the village of Dover, was a para- 
pet for eight (8) guns, not mounted, looking down the river. 
Just above Dover is another creek with back-water, and above 
this is a large piece of bottom land in cultivation. It is the 
same across the river on the north, or right bank, the low land 
extending several miles down the river, rising not much above 
high water mark. The river was then twenty-five feet deep in 
the channel. Fort Donelson was an enclosed earth-work, with 
embrasures for twenty guns ; the ditches and parapets proof 
against an assault. The revetments were of wild cane, cut in 
the swamps across the Cumberland river, all neatly done under 
the direction of Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, a graduate of West Point. 
Outside of the fort and the village of Dover, about a mile and 
a half from the river, was a line of rifle pits, which had been 
partly finished, facing nearly south. It commenced at the head 
of the most westerly bayou ; thence crossed the second ridge 
and second valley; thence over the third ridge, which was 
more broken than the others, to the third creek and bayou 
above Dover. There are lateral ravines leading into all the 
valleys, nearly at right angles, in which the timber had been 



CAPTURE OF DONELSON, 33 

slashed to form abattis. The valleys are from fifty to one 
hundred feet deep. 

This line was of great natural strength, which, in a short time, 
could have been made too strong for a successful assault. It 
was about three miles in length. Our lines were nearly parallel 
about a mile outside, leading over the ridges and along the op- 
posite crests of the lateral ravines, most of the way in the thick 
woods, with neither intrenchments or abattis. Back from the 
river at this distance the country is cut up with gullies of slip- 
pery clay resting on limestone. The first growth of timber had 
been largely cut away, but the second growth of small trees 
had become quite dense. A labyrinth of neglected roads inter- 
sected the country in all directions. No rifle pits or parapets 
had been thrown up on our side, but some of the guns were 
sunk into the earth, the dirt thrown up in front. There were 
inside the Rebel works about seventeen thousand men and 
seventy guns of all calibres. 

Before Gen. Wallace arrived, the number of Grant's com- 
mand was about twenty thousand. On the morning of Satur- 
day it was about thirty-one thousand. On our extreme right 
at Dover, where there was an open space at the upper bayou 
and a road, lay McClernand, at the foot of their fortified 
heights. His lines crossed the upper valley, their only route of 
escape by land. By the mere accident of precedence and rank, 
Gen. Floyd, the most worthless officer in the Confederate camp, 
had command of their forces. Next in rank was their next 
most worthless officer. Gen. Pillow. Next to them were Buck- 
ner and Bushrod Johnson, both of them educated and practiced 
military men. Tilghman had been captured at Fort Henry a 
week before. When we reached headquarters only an orderly 
was there and a few staff horses. Marching on a short distance 
I found Gen. C. F. Smith, whom I had not seen for thirty 
years, and whose hair was already gray, resting on a wooden 
settee under the shelter of an oak, around which was snow. 
We here had unmistakable evidence that a battle was being 
fought at our right. Ambulances with the wounded were 
moving to the rear in search of shelter. The number of cabins 
and even of tents were few, not enough to receive a tenth part 



34 WAR MEMORANDA. 

of the disabled men. Gen. Smith sent his only aide, to show us 
the route. By this time McClernand had been defeated, and 
no one knew where McArthur's brigade, to which I was at- 
tached, could be found. 

Marching along a crooked old path, through an almost im- 
passable thicket, we stumbled upon Gen. Lew Wallace, who 
ordered me to join his command. The roads were clogged by 
broken regiments and companies, most of the men gathered in 
knots ready to fight on their own hook. There was no oppor- 
tunity to maneuver a brigade, and scarcely a regiment, not more 
than one-half of which could be seen at one time. Defeated 
battalions were not fleeing to the rear, but scattered without 
commands. At Gen. McClernand's repeated and urgent re- 
quest, Wallace had sent him Craft's brigade. These troops, on 
reaching their ground, mistook Oglesby's brigade for the enemy, 
and delivered their first fire into them. The men thus merci- 
lessly pelted by their friends had been engaged nearly three 
hours, and were holding on with empty cartridge boxes until 
they could be relieved. No- one should blame them for break- 
ing ranks under such provocation. 

The contest around Donelson was largely an Illinois affair. 
Grant was a resident of that State. McClernand, Logan, McArthur, 
Oglesby and Dicky were from Illinois, with seventeen regi- 
ments and at least five batteries. There were also four regi- 
ments from Indiana, four from Ohio, three from Iowa, two 
from Kentucky and one from Missouri. No major-general was 
there. All the brigades were in command of colonels, most of 
whom had never been in battle. 

About noon General Wallace, concluding that the enemy were 
following up McClernand's broken regiments, formed a new and 
more defensive line nearly at right angles to his first one. I was 
directed to the extreme right of that crotchet with energetic or- 
ders to hold it. The moment had arrived to test the value of 
my men, in whom I had great confidence, but not one of them 
or the officers had been under fire. They were intelligent and 
patriotic volunteers, collected by companies from different parts 
of the State before the days of bounties. Their conduct in 
camp had been temperate and orderly. They had submitted to 



CAPTURE OF DONELSON. 35 

discipline without complaint; had always been well clothed and 
provided, and, I believe, gave me their confidence. I was 
proud of them, and believed they would do their whole duty ; 
but they had not been tried. Many discouraging circumstances 
surrounded them. A battle had just been lost, and it was 
reasonable to suppose the enemy would attack us furiously at 
an early moment. The wounded were being carried past, their 
blood dripping through their blankets over the snow. It seemed 
as though two of the Rebel batteries knew where the division 
headquarters were, and directed a severe cross-fire into the 
woods at that point. Their shot did little harm but were un- 
comfortably close, cutting off branches overhead, which fell 
upon the men. Logan sat there upon his horse waiting for a 
surgeon, calm, but writhing under a painful wound in the 
shoulder. An Illinois colonel rushed past, shamefully excited, 
shouting as he went that two batteries had been captured, an- 
other disabled, the infantry dreadfully cut to pieces, and the 
enemy rushing up the hill to crush us. The battery of the 
"Chicago Board of Trade, " being ordered forward, went in like 
a whirlwind to take the place of the batteries that were crippled. 
Rushing past us on the narrow road one of their guns upset, 
which nearly killed a man. Our orders were to go in as soon 
as the Seventy-eighth Ohio, Col. Woods, should be out of 
cartridges. Standing in thick brush, I called the men to order 
by companies. It was more bush-whacking than regular fight- 
ing, where each officer and each man required personal intelli- 
gence and courage. Giving them a few directions as each 
company answered to the word "attention," I had an oppor- 
tunity to scan the upturned face of each man. Arriving at the 
left of the line, I experienced an elevated, and to me a new 
emotion, such as Eugene Sue attributes to his general of the 
Jesuits, the lofty pleasure of absolute command. The demeanor 
of these men, under fire for the first time, assured me that they 
were thoroughly reliable, and could be led up to the enemy's 
works as a unit of strength. This gratifying result was largely 
due to the ability of Lieut. -Col. Force, afterwards a major-gen- 
eral, to Major McElroy, afterwards of the regular service, and 
to a zealous set of line officers. It proved that intelligent 



36 "WAR MEMORANDA. 

men make the best soldiers ; that they are not effective as they 
are ignorant. These men submitted to discipline because they 
saw the necessity of it. They executed their orders faithfully 
because they had the intelligence to understand their bearings. 
I felt not only a new confidence, but a new personal regard for 
them, which may be styled military affection, a sentiment which 
belongs only to soldiers and to commanders on the field of 
battle. Any where else it is incomprehensible. Believing that 
our right flank was turned, Gen. Wallace had directed me to 
form on the right of the Indiana troops, facing southeast. We 
had not been long in that position before the fire ceased along 
the entire line. About 3 p. m. there broke out on the far left 
a terrific fire of musketry that soon became a prolonged roar. 
It was then that Gen. Smith's division advanced up the heights 
against the exterior lines around Fort Donelson. With his cap 
raised high on the point of his sword he went up among his 
men and soon gained a crest that overlooked the fort. There 
they lay during the night, well knowing that with the dawn of 
the next day the fort would fall into their hands. Thirty years 
before, C. F. Smith was a lieutenant of infantry and instructor 
of tactics at West Point. The intervening years had been 
spent in the army, where he ranked as an accomplished officer 
in all grades of service, with a fine person, courteous and brave. 
All these qualities and this experience bore fruit at Donelson. 
He soon after met with an injury that relieved him from duty 
and caused an acute sickness that terminated his life soon after 
the battle of Shiloh Church. 

Night came on, with a clear wintry sky and a full moon. Be- 
fore sundown, under the energetic management of my quarter- 
master, Lieut. P. M. Hitchcock, our trains were up with tents 
and rations, but no tents were used. Two Illinois regiments 
drifted in around our camp-fires during the evening nearly fam- 
ished, their numbers sadly thinned and their clothing cut in 
shreds by bullets. The ordeal of the morning would have been 
thought terrible by the old French Guards. We were glad to 
divide rations with men who became heroes in a day. In the 
clear moonlight troops, artillery, supplies and ambulances were 
moving all night in anticipation of a general action in the morn- 



CAPTURE OF DONELSON. 37 

ing. Every farm house was filled with the wounded. When 
they died their bodies were laid in rows on the ground in uni- 
form, their manly faces calm and pale in the moonlight. About 
2 o'clock A. M. some of our prisoners came in saying that the 
Rebel pickets in our front were withdrawn. In the clear, still 
atmosphere we heard the splash of steamers far off to the right, 
and a confusion of sounds in the same direction. The battle 
of the morning previous had been fought on the part of the 
Confederates for the purpose of escape. When it was over and 
our forces that closed the river route were driven back. Gen. 
Floyd, becoming excited by victor)^, neglected to profit by it. 
Not less than a mile of space lay open for their exit around 
the upper bayou, in which there were no Federal soldiers except 
the dead and the wounded. Floyd was represented by the re- 
turning prisoners as fully beside himself, riding furiously through 
the works bareheaded. His telegram to Gen. A. S. Johnson, 
at Nashville, was that the Yankees had been driven away from 
Donelson. By 3 p. m. the Federal troops had nearly closed this 
gap. During the next hour Gen. Smith took the rifle pits on 
the Rebel right. Buckner, who was third in command, compre- 
hended the situation at once. Floyd began to comprehend it 
during the evening at a stormy council of war, which was held 
at a small tavern in Dover. Buckner and Pillow had been personal 
enemies ever since the war with Mexico, and here the former was 
ranked by both Pillow and Floyd. His contempt for both was 
but imperfectly concealed. When it was finally beaten into 
their heads that the command must surrender or be annihilated, 
those two gentlemen decided to provide for their personal safety. 
The noise of paddle wheels that reached our ears came from two 
small steamers, busily engaged in getting between two thousand 
and three thousand of their men across the river. Forest 
and a few hundred cavalry forded the bayou and escaped to the 
railroad. Probably Gen. Bushrod Johnson was among them. 
All of them left the works after it was determined to surrender. 
Daylight came but no order for the assault. 

The sun rose and yet no orders. Every one was asking, 
*' what does it mean," when there arose far off in the direction 
of the left a shout, which grew nearer and more powerful, till it 



38 WAR MEMORANDA. 

came to us and went rolling along the line. Donelson had sur- 
rendered. After entering the works on a hill, near their 
extreme left, to the south of Dover, in front of which there had 
been an assault on Wednesday and a battle on Friday morning, 
my men were allowed to stack arms and spend half an hour 
examining the scene. 

In front of the abattis, which surrounded their rifle pits on 
this side, the dead of both parties were strewn thickly over the 
ground. A clear sky with a warm sun began to tell upon the 
snow, and increased the depth of the universal red mud. Many 
of the wounded had lain there thirty-six hours, and still sur- 
vived. A space nearly a mile in Ifength, over which the battle 
of Saturday morning had raged, was in possession of the 
enemy until the surrender, which prevented the relief of these 
men. Parties were busy removing the living and burying the 
'dead. One poor Union soldier was quite merry and tried to 
rise up, although his bowels had been torn open twenty-four 
hours before. He was in the delirium of fever, which soon ter- 
minated in stupor and death. None of the wounded complained 
or uttered a groan. A stalwart "butternut" lay on his back, 
his eyes closed, his arms extended, and a huge knife in his 
rio-ht hand, apparently dead. There was a bullet hole in the 
centre of his forehead, from which his brain protruded. On 
close examination a low breathing was observed. One of the 
men took hold of his knife, to secure it for a trophy, but his 
finc^ers involuntarily gave it a new grip, from which it could 
not be forced. Their clothing was thin and ragged, grey and 
butternut predominating, but all the colors of Joseph's coat 
were to be seen. For blankets they carried square pieces of 
carpet, comforters and coverlets, from many a home, which the 
Southern women cheerfully sent to the camp. Some who were 
destitute of these carried feather beds on their backs, the oddity 
of which no one seemed to notice. They were in too serious a 
mood to perceive anything comical in the sitution. Before 
noon it began to rain. A large part of both armies were by 
that time in the village, pressing towards our transports, 
moored to the shore. Many of our regiments were crowding 
there to draw rations. 



CAPTURE OF DONELSON. 39 

The wounded of both sides were being helped to the houses 
and to hospital boats. Many wagons and their mules had been 
surrendered. These were being collected from all parts of the 
field. At the landing, cords of bacon were piled along the 
banks, which the Confederates had collected for a siege. 
There were several hundred hogsheads of sugar, with huge piles 
of corn and flour, in sacks, all exposed to the falling rain. 

Under a booth, in a ravine on their picket line, were the dead 
bodies of a Union and a Confederate soldier, who had crawled 
there after the battle. One foot of the Federal had been carried 
away by a round shot. They had managed to kill a hog, and 
peeling away a portion of his hide had cut off and probably 
eaten a portion of the meat. The carcass of the hog lay 
between them, more ghastly than their own. 

The prisoners stacked their arms with a very good grace, but 
objected to giving up their pistols and knives. Most of them 
carried both. These knives were generally made by country 
blacksmiths from files and saw-plates. Some of them were 
eighteen inches long and two inches wide, rude and barbarous 
instruments, thoroughly in keeping with the general appearance 
of their owners. These they claimed as a part of their apparel. 
It was not long, however, before some unruly ones began to 
use them upon our men, and it became necessary to take them 
away. A more pitiful collection of human beings was probably 
never seen. Dejected and exhausted, hungry, wet and cold, 
they huddled together in the mud and rain around the few 
houses constituting the town of Dover, waiting for the rolls to 
be made out and rations issued. 

The army under Grant had not been able to bring up its 
camp equipage, but our lines were fortunately in timber, which 
furnished an abundance of firewood, and which broke the force 
of the storm Thursday night. It was quite different with the 
butternuts. They had cut away much of the thick underbrush 
in front of their works, or were compelled to spend the night 
in cutting away the remainder, digging trenches, or anything but 
sleeping before a good fire. When morning opened on their 
snow-covered bivouacs they expected a general assault. Their 
bread rations were generally issued in the shape of flour, which 



40 WAR MEMORANDA. 

they were compelled to wet with water and bake in the ashes. 
In this distressed condition a heavy whiskey ration had been 
issued, to prepare them for an attack. The poor fellows 
charged the defeat to these dreadful exposures, which they said 
no troops could endure. Very few had blankets or overcoats ; 
some were without hats, their heads and shoulders wrapped in 
shawls or quilts as a protection against the rain. Their feet 
were better protected than their bodies; but the red mud, 
worked into mush by the tread of fifty-thousand men, was half 
knee deep. Snow, mud and rain, without tents, bad rations, 
tangle-foot whiskey, prolonged labor and the annoyances of 
shot and shell, had thoroughly demoralized the entire crowd. 
Even a surrender was a relief. 

Within the works, on the morning of the surrender, a scene 
presented itself, embodying everything uncomfortable in nature 
and horrible in war. Dead animals and men lay in the mud 
where they had fallen. Deserted wagons, with living and dead 
mules attached, were mired in the roads. In some of them were 
dogs howling for their masters. Among the sacks of corn were 
stray horses helping themselves. Straggling men were throw- 
ing sides of bacon into the streets, to be used as flagging. 
About twenty thousand small arms of every calibre were 
stacked at the side of a street next the river. These were run 
do^vn by teams, animals and men, forming a sort of a causeway 
over which the pedestrians walked. 

Crowds of Confederates, very few of whom were in uniform, 
and who were unable to find shelter, stood in groups in the 
rain, under guard of our men. 

Having received no order since noon of Saturday, I found my 
way to headquarters on a boat. A large part of the cabin was 
occupied by Gen. Grant and his staff, all of whom I found 
busily at work, surrounded by wounded officers. Col. Webster 
was intently looking at a photograph of his wife and boys, 
which had just reached him. To my application for orders 
General Grant replied: 

" Have you a good regiment?" 

Colonel Webster said, "Yes, general, I saw it go into line 
yesterday, like a parade." 



CAPTURE OF DONELSON. 4 1 

"Very well. Take charge of the prisoners and I will intro- 
duce you to Gen. Buckner." 

We mounted, and riding towards the tavern, so lately occu- 
pied by Floyd and Pillow, I enquired if I could see his report 
on the surrender. 

"Have you seen the telegram?" 

"Yes." 

"Well, that is report enough." 

There is still much discussion in regard to the number of 
prisoners surrendered at Donelson. The memoranda in my 
possession are not sufficient to give the precise number. 

Gen. Buckner's report is as follows : 

GENERAL ABSTRACT OF PRISONERS OF WAR FURNISHED BY GEN. S. 
B. BUCKNER, OF CONFEDERATE ARMY, SURRENDERED AT FORT 

DONELSON, TENNESSEE. 

February r6, 1862. 
To Brigadier-General U. S. Grant, U. S. A.: t^ 

49th Tennesse regiment, Col. Bailey 4^9 

53d Tennessee regiment, Col. Abernathy 3^2 

27th Alabama regiment, Col. Jackson 288 

42d Tennessee regiment. Col. Quarrells 539 

Captain Guy's battery 35 

26th Tennessee regiment. Col. Lillards. 421 

14th Mississippi regiment, Col. Baldwin 600 

i8th Tennessee regiment. Col. Palmer 600 

2d Kentucky regiment, Col. Hanson • • • 45° 

20th Mississippi regiment, Major Brown 454 

Captain Milton's company 27 

50th Virginia regiment, Lt. Hasless 8 

7th Texas regiment, Col. Gregg 3^3 

15th Arkansas regiment, Col. Lee 3^8 

Captain Preston's cavalry 73 

51st Tennessee regiment, Major Clark 183 

Col. Lugg 518 

Porter's artillery 24 

3d Tennessee regiment, Col Brown 5°° 

8th Kentucky regiment. Col. Lyon 290 

30th Tennessee regiment, Major Humphry 700 

232d Tennessee regiment. Col. Cook 558 

41st Tennessee regiment. Col. Farqueharson 481 

8,209 

Mississippi regiment. Col. Davidson 600 

Scattered companies not yet reported i, 120 

Total 9.929 



42 WAR MEMORANDA. 

The report of Gen. Buckner does not include the sick and 
the wounded in the hospital at Dover, of whom there should 
have been several hundred. 

When the prisoners were placed on the transports, my regi- 
ment proved to be not a sufficient guard, and a portion were as- 
signed to Col. Sweeny, of Illinois, who did not report to me. 
There is a memorandum in my notes that there were 10,300 
men distributed to the several prison camps, and another that 
the number was 10,389. The estimate of those who escaped, 
including Forest's cavalry, was 2,300. The largest figures do 
not represent men enough to man their lines by at least 5,000, 
and Confederate officers denied that there were 13,000 present 
all told. 

Gen. Leonidas Polk, who was in command at Columbus, Ky., 
issued an order on the 17th of February, which has the follow- 
ing official statement: 

" The relative strength of the Confederate and Federal forces on the night of the isth, 
at Donelson, was seventeen thousand against seventy thousand. * * » Our troops, 
worn out by watching and exhausted by the fatigue of two days' incessant conflict, had 
laid their weary bodies on their beds of straw. * * * Gen. Floyd retreated by the 
river with a portion of his command and has reached Clarksville. » * * Gen. Pillow 
is retreating on Clarksville by land with a large body of troops." 

On our arrival at the Confederate headquarters we found Gen. 
Buckner and his staff in the upper rooms of a tavern, where the 
Confederate council of war had been held a few hours previous. 
There was of necessity some delay on the part of our commis- 
sary in issuing rations to the prisoners, but, with two exceptions, 
their officers were courteous, endeavoring to make the best of 
their situation. The exceptions were Gen. Buckner and a lieu- 
tenant of his staff, whom it soon became necessary to snub. 
Nineteen regiments, a battalion and three batteries were repre- 
sented by the officers present, who immediately set about 
making their returns. Before noon of the 17th the prisoners 
were on board steamers destined for St. Louis, Terre Haute, 
Alton, Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio. The officers were 
sent to Boston. With the two exceptions above given, my re- 
lations to these unfortunate men and their officers were not un- 
pleasant. The horses of the officers were scattered over the 
plain, some of whom had been appropriated by Federal officers. 



CAPTURE OF DONELSON. 43 

Col. Simonton, of the First Mississippi regiment, commanded 
a brigade on their extreme left, opposed to Oglesby's IlHnois 
brigade. Both of these officers were exposed in open ground 
to a close fire at short range nearly two hours, and both escaped 
unhurt. Col. Simonton commissioned me to recover his horse 
and present it to Col. Oglesby, since Governor of Illinois, in 
testimony of his personal admiration of a brave man. Col. 
Hanson, of the Second Kentucky, Col. Baldwin, of Alabama, 
with many other officers, formed an agreeable part of our mess. 
The guns captured within their lines were generally new and in 
complete order. Of all calibre there were about seventy pieces, 
most of them thirty-pound parrots^and twenty-four-pound how- 
itzers. 

The cabins in Fort Donelson were put up on regular streets, 
furnishing comfortable quarters for about two thousand men. 
In tents they were, like ourselves, very deficient. The bril- 
liant results of Donelson gave promotion to nearly all the 
officers who participated in its capture. The finale was quite 
unexpected to both parties. Jeff Davis and Gen. A. S. John- 
ston appeared to be wholly at ease as to this part of the Confed- 
erate line. Floyd and Pillow had no comprehension of their 
peril until they were invested. Escape was then possible, but 
a successful defense was not. The fort required only about two 
thousand men, and could hold more than five thousand. De- 
fenses for the remainder of the line had to be constructed under 
the fire of our batteries and sharpshooters. Although both 
parties were equally exposed to the weather, our troops were 
much better clothed and were not required to labor on trenches. 
The Confederates had rest neither night nor day. It was a 
question of physical endurance with great advantage on our 
side. Buckner truly says, "Our troops were broken down by 
unusual privations." Most of them had labored and fought in- 
cessantly for a week. From Thursday morning until Friday 
night they had been almost continually under heavy fire. They 
had suffered intensely in a heavy snow storm from cold, almost 
without shelter, with insufficient food, almost without sleep, and 
had behaved with gallantry, unsurpassed until the power of 
further endurance was exhausted. The fighting on our part on 



44 WAR MEMORANDA. 

land, previous to Saturday afternoon, was either incidental or de- 
fensive. Until after the failure of the gunboats our lines were 
not well closed around the works. After that, escape was barely 
possible. An experienced commander might have saved a large 
portion of his troops from the disgrace of a capture as late as 
Saturday noon. On our part there was less discipline than on 
theirs. The officers on both sides were equally inexperienced 
with their soldiers, but those deficiencies were made good by a 
common impulse to press forward on our part, and on theirs to 
resist. Our sharpshooters crawled through the brush and 
abattis, picking off their gunners with fatal accuracy. A very 
slight excuse brought on a fight. Generally the Federals had 
the worst of it, but this did not quench their resolution.* If the 
regiment was broken up the battle was prolonged by companies 
and squads, acting often without orders. However, for severe 
and prolonged work, the Northwestern men had the more 
muscle and more capacity for endurance than the Southern; a 
fact which Gen. Grant duly appreciated. On Sunday morning 
the Federal troops were ready for a general assault. The fire of 
Gen. C. F, Smith's division on our left was grand on Satur- 
day afternoon, but there would have been a much grander 
spectacle, embracing the entire line, at daybreak of Sunday if it 
had been necessary to attack. If Gen. Grant's department had 
included Nashville, the value of the capture would have been 
much greater. Some boats went up the river as far as Clarks- 
ville, where the Northwestern railroad crosses it, and burned 
the iron works, but went no farther. Before Gen. Mitchel, as 
the advance of Buell's column, reached Nashville, Gen, John- 
ston had abundant time to destroy or carry away two millions 
of military stores. 



BATTLE OF SHILOH CHURCH. 45 



CHAPTER IV 



BATTLE OF SHILOH CHURCH. 

The battle of *'Shiloh Church" has been so often described 
"by writers of reputation that its details are well known. Con- 
nected with it there has been from the days of the engagement 
to the present time serious charges against some of the generals, 
repelled by counter-charges, criticisms and defenses of great 
warmth. It was then the greatest battle fought on American 
soil, to which personal criminations and recriminations added 
features of interest beyond the numbers engaged and the re- 
markable pertinacity exhibited by both parties. 

Whoever studies the map of the field, as surveyed by the 
United States engineers, and of which a reduced copy is here 
given, will perceive that the position of the Union army was 
by nature a very strong one. It will also be apparent that no 
advantage was taken of this natural strength by artificial de- 
fenses or in the disposition of the troops. This might be very 
difficult to explain without imputing gross neglect to the gen- 
erals, were it not for the peculiar condition of the command. 

Gen. C. F. Smith, the ranking officer in the camp, was dis- 
abled by an injury, of which he soon died. Gen. Grant, tech- 
nically in command of the Army of the Tennessee, had his 
headquarters at Savannah, twelve miles below. Practically there, 
was an interregnum in the command. Gen. Grant having been 
superseded by Gen. Halleck, who was on the way from St. 
Louis, having sent orders not to bring on a battle. Gen. Grant 
was then in disfavor at St. Louis and Washington. It followed 
— as it might with any officer thus situated, neither in com- 
mand nor yet wholly out of it — that he did not feel responsible 
for events. After the withdrawal of Gen. Smith, although 
Major Gen. McClernand became the ranking officer at camp. 



46 WAR MEMORANDA. 

Brigadier-Gen. Sherman was entrusted with the greatest confi- 
dence at headquarters. 

Gen. Halleck's plan was to move on Memphis. Late in 
March, ten days provisions were put on the wagons for that 
movement. This was countermanded. The arrival of Halleck 
and of the command of Gen, Buell were made prehminary to the 
march on Memphis. Neither Gens. Halleck, Grant, McCler- 
nand, Sherman or any officer commanding a division had taken 
into consideration an attack by the enemy. For the arrange- 
ments of the camps the division commanders were not responsi- 
ble. This had been fixed by Gen. Smith or Gen. Grant. 

The army had lain thus since early in March, perfecting its 
discipline and making itself as comfortable as the mud and 
rains of the season would admit, wholly unconscious of danger. 

It was evident that neither Gen. Grant nor Gen. Smith an- 
ticipated fighting at Pittsburg Landing. In that case the dis- 
positions would have been quite different. Instead of obstruc- 
tions in front, roads had been repaired and bridges laid to 
facilitate an advance. Sherman says: "No entrenchments 
were made because a forward movement was expected." Be- 
tween Hurlbut and Prentiss was a space of about a mile, in 
which there were no troops posted until after the attack. 
Although many subordinates anticipated danger, Sherman and 
Grant regarded the demonstrations on our front as reconnois- 
sances only. A single day's work of the command with spades 
and axes would have made the position impregnable against an 
assault by less than three times our numbers. Looking at 
the miniature plan of the field, it will be seen that the space 
between the valley of Owl and Snake creeks on our right, and 
Lick Creek on our extreme left, is filled with a labyrinth of 
rivulets heading near each other, which discharge into those 
creeks and the Tennessee river. Each one of these represents 
a sharp valley with steep banks and running water at the 
bottom. Generally these ravines and gulches were filled with 
timber. Their depth is from twenty to eighty feet below the 
general plain, with numberless perennial springs. On the 
river front, at the landing, the bluffs are from eighty to one 



BATTLE OF SHILOH CHURCH. 4/ 

hundred feet high and are abrupt. To cross the gulches in the 
face of an enemy was Hke making an assault on a fortress. 

Sherman's division on the northeasterly side of Oak run was 
in a good defensive position across the Corinth road, at a 
church or meeting-house of oak logs hewed on both sides, 
known as Shiloh Church. As this was the point around which 
there was a fierce and sanguinary conflict during two days, it 
properly gives a name to the battle. Prentiss' division on 
Sherman's left, and not in close relations to it, was so near the 
heads of the branches that the gullies are not very deep ; and 
he was partly astride of one of them. The ground opposite is 
nearly on a level with his camp, placing the attacking force 
nearly upon an equality with him. From thence easterly to 
the ravines, heading up from Lick creek, there were no troops 
except Stuart's brigade, a distance of more than a mile. There 
were in the field troops enough, amounting to three divisions^ 
to occupy this space, but it was not the best line, and on the 
accepted theory of security no one thought of occupying it. 
Prentiss and Sherman made a stubborn resistance, during which 
the other divisions came to their aid ; but the enemy was already 
through the gap on the waters of Lick creek, and, pressing 
forward, turned our left irretrievably. Under great pressure and 
with great skill, a new line was formed, facing southeasterly 
from McClernand's camp, across the head of Brier run to the 
ravines that open into the Tennessee above the landing. Here 
all the divisions on the ground were engaged, heroically breast- 
ing the waves of disaster, but were overwhelmed. They were 
compelled to cross the valley of the Brier run into the natural 
fortress, within which W. H. H. Wallace commanded Smith's 
division. By the help of a park of siege guns the advance of 
Gen. Nelson's division of Buell's army, and the gunboats 
sweeping the ravines which the enemy had reached on the 
Tennessee shore, their impetuous rush was checked before 
night closed in over the scene. Two Federal divisions were 
broken up and the camps of three were occupied by the enemy. 
On account of the surprise of the morning, and the stubborn resist- 
ance that followed, the ground presented a sadder sight than 
that of ordinary battles. Full twenty thousand men and horses, 



48 WAR TMEMORANDA. 

dead, mortally wounded or disabled, lay within cannon range 
of Shiloh Church, of which each army furnished an equal 
number. Every Confederate brigade had been engaged, some of 
them many times, from early morning until 5 o'clock p. m., and 
their men were thoroughly exhausted. Very few of their 
teams could follow the regiments, over tracks that did not de- 
serve the name of roads at any time, and then were impassable 
for loaded trains. Under these adverse circumstances the best 
care was taken of their own wounded and of ours which was 
possible, but most of their men were too weary to make any 
further exertion. They cast themselves upon the ground and 
fell asleep. Very few fires were lighted, and where rations 
could not be found in our deserted camps there were none to 
issue. A cheerless and sulphurous mist- settled down among 
the tree-tops, succeeded by heavy clouds, and at intervals dur- 
ing the night by cold showers. Every five minutes a gun was 
fired from the boats, throwing an eight or an eleven-inch time 
shell, which burst in some part of the field with a report equal 
to that of the gun itself Little did the exhausted men heed 
either the noise or the danger of those terrible missiles. 

The morning report for March 25, 1862, exhibits Gen. Grant's 
command as follows : 

ist division, Gen. McClernand ;■ 7.799 

2d division, Gen. C. F. Smith, afterwards W. H. Wallace 7,632 

3d division. Gen. Lew Wallace 9,014 

4th division. Gen. Hurlbut 7.933 

5th division, Gen, Sherman 8,721 

41,099 

Cavalry 3.236 

Artillery 1.858 

Total 46, 193 

The Sixth division. Gen. Prentiss, had not then arrived. It 
was present on Sunday, and the Third was not. As this divis- 
ion was exceptionally large, probably the Sixth did not make 
its numbers good, and therefore the force on the field during 
the first day did not exceed forty-five thousand men. 

Gens. Grant and Sherman held a consultation between 4 and 
5 p. M., when it was concluded that eighteen thousand men 



BATTLE OF SHILOH CHURCH. 



49 



could be organized for an attack on the morrow. Twenty-seven 
thousand were killed, captured, dispersed or disabled. Such 
another disaster to a fine army did not occur in this war, proba- 
bly in no war of this century. All the generals of this division 
may have been somewhat implicated in this dreadful result, but 
the Northern press and people attributed it principally to Gens. 
Grant and Sherman. The absence of ordinary precaution 
naturally resulted in a surprise. It possibly had its origin in the 
opinion that the enemy was not prepared for an attack, a 
theory which ordinary information would have dissipated. If 
an attack was anticipated the case is far worse. It would then 
be gross negligence, extending from the chief down through 
all the division commanders, especially those in front of the 
camp. 

Whatever there is of praise or blame connected with those 
events must be judged upon its merits, with which the subse- 
quent achievements of the commanders have nothing to do. 
Gen. Grant was wise enough to make no public explanations. 
With his friends, especially Gen. Sherman, it has been quite 
different. Their defenses and explanations have been frequent 
and public from 1862 to this time. In most of them, and in 
the endorsement by Gen. Grant of Gen. Wallace's report, the 
disasters of the first day were largely attributed to the tardiness 
of the Third division in reaching the field. If this division was 
not in line during the first day, it was because it was not soon 
enough ordered to be there ; and the reason of this delay is to 
be found in a false theory that the attack on Shiloh was a feint. 
When it received marching orders it will be found that nothing 
was left undone to bring it into the field at the earliest moment 
possible. The proofs are indisputable, that the battle was vir- 
tually lost before the latter received the order to move. 

Gen. Badeau's life of Gen. Grant was written by authority, 
and states that "Gen. Wallace was set right at i p. m., and it 
took him until 7 o'clock to move five miles." 

In his Military Memoirs, page 245, Gen. Sherman makes the 
following statement : 

"General Grant visited me about 10 a. m., where we were 
holding our ground, and said he had ordered Lew Wallace's 



50 WAR MEMORANDA. 

division at Crump's Landing to cross Snake creek so as to come 
upon my right. We had waited all day expecting him, and 
early at night he arrived from the other side of Snake creek, not 
having fired a shot." 

In 1863 General Sherman published a letter in the United 
Service Magazine, reiterating the charge, saying : 

"About 4 p. M. I selected a line in advance of the bridge 
across Snake creek, by which we had all day been expecting 
Lew. Wallace's division. * ;^ * Lew. Wallace's 

division only four miles off, was expected each minute." 

In General Grant's report he says : 

"I directed this (Wallace's) division at about 8 a. m. to be 
held in readiness to march at a moment's warning. Certainly 
not later than 1 1 o'clock the order reached him to march by a 
flank movement to Pittsburg Landing." 

A very zealous friend of Gen. Grant's, in the National Repub- 
lican, Washington, March 6, 1873, repeats the charges of 
Badeau and Sherman, in a still more offensive manner: 

"To Gen. Lew. Wallace's shameful tardiness, to call it by 
no harsher name, was mainly due the repulse of the first day." 

After the documents presented below had been shown to 
Gen. Grant in 1873, he was candid enough to admit that they 
made quite a change in his opinion. Gen. Sherman reiterated 
his views as late as May, 1881. 

STATEMENTS OF OFFICERS PRESENT. 

Letter of Lieut-Col. J. R. Ross, January 25, 1868: 

" Now for the order. Badeau says a staff officer was dis- 
patched with a verbal order to you to march by the nearest 
road parallel with the river." 

About 1 1 o'clock A. M. Captain Baxter handed Col. Ross a 
paper which he read, and says : 

"I very distinctly remember this order directed you to move 
on the Purdy road, and form your line of battle at right angles 
to the river, and then act as circumstances should dictate." 

He further says, the shortest distance from the camp at 
Stoney Lonesome to Pittsburg Landing is five (5) miles; to the 
same point by the route indicated twelve (12) miles. 



BATTLE OF SHILOH CHURCH. 5 I 

Col. Bausenwein's report, 58th Ohio, Thayer's brigade: 

"At twelve o'clock the brigade moved forward. We 
marched all the afternoon at quick time through ravines and 
swamps, until we arrived, about an hour after dark," etc. 

General J. A. Strickland, June 24, 1868: 

"At half past eleven, it might have been fifteen minutes to 
twelve, a person rode up to Gen. Wallace with orders to move. 
Col. Thayer's brigade at Stoney Lonesome was in motion in 
ten minutes after the order was received." 

Gen. G. F. McGinnis, February 19, 1868, states generally 
that he commanded the Eleventh Indiana, attached to the First 
brigade. M. L. Smith received orders at Crump's Landing, 
from Wallace soon after the battle commenced, and in twenty 
minutes was on the march to Stoney Lonesome or Winn's farm, 
two and a half miles out from the river, and waited for orders 
until near 12 o'clock m. 

Gen. Fred. Kneufler, A. A. G., Third division : 

"I was much surprised to see Gen. Badeau's revision of your 
conduct at the battle of Shiloh, first day. About 9 o'clock 
Gen. Grant passed up on the Tigress, and in passing had a con- 
versation with you. It must have been twelve o'clock when 
Captain Baxter arrived with orders, and brought cheering intelli- 
gence that our army was successful. I remember it was a writ- 
ten order to march and form a junction with the right of the 
army, which was understood to be the right, as it rested in the 
morning when the battle began. We marched rapidly, and, 
judging from the sound were, approaching it fast. The advance 
guard had reached the crossing of Snake creek, near a mill or 
large building and a bridge, from which point we could see the 
smoke overhanging the field of battle and hear the musketry, 
when an order was received to retrace our steps. It is the 
general impression that we marched between fifteen and eigh- 
teen miles, the roads almost impassable, part of the distance 
through woods with no roads at all. It ought not to be inti- 
mated that you did not do your whole duty in endeavoring to 
reach the field of action." 

Captain A. W. Ware, A. D. C: 

" At twenty minutes to twelve an order was delivered to you 



52 WAR MEMORANDA. 

by Captain Baxter, to move to Sherman's right on the Purdy 
road." 

Gen. J. W. Thayer, Washington, March, 1873: 

" At about half past eleven a. m., an officer rode up to Gen. 
Wallace, at Stoney Lonesome, with the expected order from 
Gen. Grant, and in a few minutes the command (Second bri- 
gade) was on the march towards the field of action. Accord- 
ing to my recollection there was no halt on the march except 
to close up the column." 

Col. Whittlesey, March, 1873: 

" I cannot give the precise distance from Stoney Lonesome by 
your route to the mouth of Oak run, not having been over it. 
Now as to time, I was on a boat, holding court martial on the 
morning of the 6th of April. In Gen. Grant's endorsement of 
your report, he states that he passed up from Savannah at about 
8 A. M., and directed you to be in readiness to move. I did not 
time it, but have always regarded the hour as at least half-past 
eight. The firing had been going on much more than an hour, 
which Gen. Sherman reports commenced at 7 a. m. I saw Gen. 
Grant in conference with you over the rail of the boat, and you 
said that the general's theory was that our postion would be 
attacked.* My brigade at Adamsville received no orders to 
move till 2 p. m., although the teams were hitched and ready 
to move at noon. The orders were to take the road back to 
Stoney Lonesome and thence follow you. A short distance 
out of Stoney Lonesome on the south, a blind route takes off 
to the left and leads into the river road, which crosses Snake 
creek near its mouth. You took the right hand part of this 
track, which would bring you to Owl creek and the Purdy 
Road, near the mouth of Oak run. Between this point and 
the bridge on the river road, the valley of Snake creek is im- 
passable for cavalry or artillery, being a continuous swamp, 
through which the infantry could not pass or keep order. 
The road was clayey and soft, and before we reached Stony 
Lonesome it was near 4 p. m. A short distance west of it Col. 
McPherson, then of the staff, met us with disastrous news, 
and orders to leave the trains and hurry on. A boy orderly 



BATTLE OF SHILOH CHURCH. 53 

was placed by him where the road forks, south of Stoney Lone- 
some, to show us the path across to the river road." 

Gen. Wallace's report and letter to Gen. Grant : 

"These letters show, as I think, that I took measures in an- 
ticipation of your order to me personally, on your way up the 
river, to hold myself in readiness to march in any direction. 
When about a mile from the position which had been occupied 
by the right of our army (Sherman's division). Captain Rowley 
overtook me, telling me a very different story from that of 
Captain Baxter. He set me right as to the condition of the 
battle, not as to the road I was following. Col. McPherson 
and Major Rawlins met me on the corner march, when my 
command was on the river road, moving to Pittsburg Landing. 
The march actually performed v/as not less than fifteen (15) 
miles, over an execrable dirt road." 

Assumhig that the distance of the march of the brigades of 
Col. M. L. Smith and Col. J. M. Thayer was thirteen miles 
and the time six and one-half hours, their rate of progress was 
two miles an hour. Had they been directed to the lower cross- 
ing of Snake creek, they would have reached the field about 
3:30 P. M. Was the march as rapid as practicable? Gen. 
Buell's head of column was on that morning about three miles 
east of Savannah, which is on the east bank of the Tennessee, 
eleven or twelve miles below Pittsburg Landing. The head of 
his column reached the landing about 5 p. m., marching, say 
fourteen or fifteen miles in eight or nine hours, dropping his 
trains and batteries a large part of the distance under pressure 
of anticipated battle. His average was a little over a mile and 
a half an hour. 

After the arrival of Col. McPherson, about 4 p. m,, my 
command, in good marching order, hurried on under the same 
pressure, making no halt and occupied about three (3) hours 
to accomplish six (6) miles, a rate of two (2) miles an hour. 

It rained nearly every day and night of the week of the battle. 
The universal red clay of that country, under the passage of an 
army, became a soft liquid mass, into which the teams and 
guns sank as they would in batter. 

Beauregard was from daylight of the 3rd of April into the 



54 WAR MEMORANDA. 

night of the 5th moving from Corinth to our line (three days 
and two nights) less than twenty miles. No general could have 
more incentives to energy than he had. If he could have gained 
one day the army at Shiloh would have been annihilated. 

Gen. Grant's theory of an attack on the Third division at 
Adamsville was certainly plausible. Had Gen. Polk — whose 
corps was near Purdy, about eight miles west, reported to 
have been fourteen thousand strong — been enterprising, he could 
have crushed Wallace, captured the trains and supplies and re- 
turned in one day. 

Reputation is as dear to the men and officers of the Third 
division as it is to those of the Fifth. The commander of the 
latter, during many years, on many public occasions, has as- 
sailed the conduct of Gen. Wallace, who was his senior, and 
the officers and the men of his command in the face of indis- 
putable facts. 

Military rank is not superior to historical truth, which will 
eventually be accepted by those who participated in that great 
battle, with perhaps one exception. 

Halleck's order not to bring on an engagement certainly did 
not imply that no precautions should be made against an attack. 
An army deprived of the ability to defend itself would present 
a most pitiable spectacle. An army compelled, without warning 
and without preparation, to take such blows as the enemy might 
choose to give, could not with propriety be called a belligerent. 
When its numbers, equipment and position are such that ordi- 
nary precaution would prevent a force of thrice its numbers 
from o-aining a foothold in its camps, and it loses three-fifths of 
its ground and can rally only two-fifths of its men, there does 
not appear to be much ground for a claim to generalship. 

The advance cavalry and scouts of Gen. Beauregard's army 
formed a cordon of observation visible to our pickets, by 
whom their presence was reported without making any percept- 
ible impression upon the general officers. 

Col. Buckland, of the Seventy-second Ohio, afterwards a 
brigadier, skirmished with the enemy on the 3rd, only five 
miles from our lines. On the 4th, about 2 p. m., the picket 
line was attacked and seven or eight men of the Seventieth 



BATTLE OF SHILOH CHURCH. CC 

Ohio, Col. Cockerill, were captured. Col. Buckland, perceiving 
that a company of Rebel calvary had got behind a company of 
his infantry, attacked and dispersed them, killed several and 
captured twelve. This was against orders, and an act which 
Gen. Sherman was not slow to condemn. 

Surgeon M. T. Carey, of the Eighth Ohio Volunteers, was a 
prisoner in Beauregard's camp on Saturday night, the 5th of 
April. He says: " At daybreak Sunday morning the enemy's 
(Federals) advance was in sight of our (Confederate) camp. 
Gen. Johnson remarked to Gen. Beauregard: 'Can it be pos- 
sible they are not aware of our presence.' Beauregard replied: 
* It is scarcely possible they are laying a plan to entrap us. ' I 
have often heard of demoralized armies, but the scene presented 
here beggars discription. The woods were crowded with men 
running at full speed with trunks filled with booty and big 
bundles, some without hats or guns, divested of everything 
which offered an impediment to their running the race set be- 
fore them." 

Beauregard and the officers made use of every exertion to 
stop the fugitives, without avail. At 5 p. m. Dr. Carey believes 
that five thousand of our troops could have captured the Rebel 
army. About that hour the Third division was halted a little 
more than a mile in front of McDowell's position at Oak run,and 
soon after ordered back to his abandoned camp. 

Many of the Confederates came on the field with large lances, 
which they dropped as fast as a Federal soldier's musket could 
be found. The wooden stem was of ash, 7 feet long, very 
heavy, the head iron, with a hook near its base, all very 
clumsy, and doing no harm as against a bayonet. 

Beyond Oak run there were a number of boxes of ammuni- 
tion for Enfield muskets, and on them were the London label 
in stamped characters. On their muskets left on the field there 
were some with the marks of the tower. 

Gen, Buckland, in a letter to the Cincinnati Gazette, April 
14, 1871, says: "The next day being Saturday, the 5th, I 
visited the picket lines several times and found the woods 
swarming with Rebel cavalry along the entire front of my line, 
and the pickets claimed to have discovered infantry and artil- 



56 WAR MEMORANDA. 

lery." During this day he consulted with Cols. Cockerill, 
Hildebrand and Sullivan as to what should be done, all of them 
apprehending an attack. They strengthened their pickets and 
established a line of sentries during the night from the camp to 
the front. These wise precautions enabled this brigade to re- 
sist the attack on the next morning, and to withstand the Rebel 
onset stoutly for three hours. 

Col. Worthington, of the Forty-sixth Ohio, of McDowell's 
brigade, on the extreme right, saw in his front abundant evi- 
dences of an attack. 

Gen. Sherman, however, held tenaciously to the theory of a 
reconnoissance until 7:30 a. m. of the 6th, when fighting had 
been going on at the skirmish line nearly an hour. 

If any resistance was contemplated, the line of resistance was 
naturally at the front. On this line there was a gap in which 
there were no Federal troops, and at the most assailable part, 
into which the Confederate right wing marched without oppo- 
sition. It was not left open because there were not troops 
enough to fill it. Three divisions were in the rear, not posted 
for the purpose of meeting an enemy, but for convenience as to 
supplies, wood and water. There is no evidence that the idea 
of offensive arrangements were considered by any of the gen- 
erals. If it had been, one day's work of the forces with spades 
and axes would have prevented an attack. 

On such fields there are great mental activities and agonies 
that must not be overlooked. Before the stupor of death 
comes on, there are preternatural flashes of memory, illumina- 
ting the path of life. The spirit of the dying soldier returns 
to the home he has left. Actions and thoughts that occupied 
many years, reappear with a rapidity comparable to nothing 
better than electricity. Some are silent, only a few utter groans ; 
others sigh and pray only, rarely there are curses. 

A later stage is that of delirium with chatter and laughter, as 
indescribable as it is horrible, because it is a premonition of the 
end. Many who anticipated death, that did not come, spoke 
of a spiritual elevation, such as a mind partially liberated from 
the body might experience. 



MOVEMENT ON CINCINNATI, SEPTEMBER, 1 862. ^7 



CHAPTER V. 



MOVEMENT ON CINCINNATI, SEPTEMBER, I8D2. 

In the fall of 1861 the Union men of East Tennessee, a large 
part of whom were refugees in the mountains, most piteously 
besought our generals and the Government to send an expedi- 
tion to Knoxville, They were ready to perform their part to 
insure its success. A number of these patriots were in Cin- 
cinnati in consultation with Gen. Mitchel. He planned an ex- 
pedition through one of the gaps in the Cumberland range, 
southerly of Cumberland gap, to be made by the men of his 
command. As it would be in Gen. Sherman's department, his 
assent and assistance were necessary. A meeting of those 
generals was to take place at Lexington. Mitchel went there, 
but Sherman came not, and gave no apology. A number of the 
refugees had already left Cincinnati to burn the bridges on the 
railroad from Knoxville east. They performed their part, for 
which some of them lost their lives. Under the orders of 
Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate Secretary of War, they were 
summarily executed, and suspected residents were sent to Rich- 
mond. Had Mitchel been sustained, and the valley of the 
Tennessee occupied above Chattanooga, those suffering loyalists 
would have been relieved from their savage tormentors, and 
there could not have been, the year following, the invasion under 
Bragg. In anticipation of such a movement, McCIellan took 
measures to meet it as early as May, 1861. His chief military 
engineer, Captain O. M. Poe, was directed to make a survey of 
the environs of Covington and Newport as the proper place to 
defend Cincinnati. This survey was partly completed when 
Gen. McClellan's headquarters were removed to the field in 
Western Virginia. In the fall of that year Gen. O. M. Mitchel 
became commander of the department of the Ohio, who di- 



\/ 



58 WAR MEMORANDA. 

rected me to continue the survey, locate forts and batteries, and 
lay out connecting lines of parapets. Some heavy, smooth- 
bore guns had been sent from Pittsburg. Until late in the fall, 
when Gen. Mitchel was relieved, I pushed the work as fast as 
the regiments in camp furnished the fatigue parties. For as- 
sistants I had William Henry Searles, Geoffrey Strengel and M. 
Ritner, very capable men and energetic civil engineers. Mr. 
Searles was the draftsman, who finished Captain Poe's map in 
a neat and detailed manner. It was taken to Washington by 
Gen. Mitchel, left in the hands of the President, and from in- 
formation by Mr. Strengel, is thought to have been secured by 
Rebel spies who infested Washington. A second map was con- 
structed from our field notes, which was turned over to Buell. 
Two batteries were constructed on the Cincinnati side, one on 
the hills near Mt. Adams, looking up the river, another at the 
quarries west of Mill creek, commanding the works at the west 
end of the Covington line, on the river near the race course. 
Each battery had two eighteen-pound smooth-bores. On the 
Covington side there was an artillery parapet near the west end 
of the lines, not furnished with guns. Fort Mitchel, on the 
Lexington pike, was nearly completed and about half-mounted 
with thirty-two pounders. There were two batteries near the 
Licking, on spurs of the hills, one at the tunnel and one higher 
up at a quarry ; another on a point east of the valley, but with- 
out guns. Further east was a small, partly finished fort known 
as Battery Shaler. He was a thorough Union man, who cheer- 
fully saw his vine yards destroyed, and gave us besides all the 
assistance in his power. As the Government did not furnish 
Gen. Mitchel the money to construct these works, he appealed 
to the city of Cincinnati, which at once advanced him ^100,000. 
After December, 1861, nothing more was done until Septem- 
ber, 1862. Although we held Memphis, Decatur, Stephenson, 
Nashville and Cumberland gap, the Confederacy still kept the 
railway opened from Richmond through Lynchburg, Knoxville 
and Chattanooga, connecting with the Gulf States east of the 
Mississippi. To them the Mississippi was' of only little more 
consequence than this road. Kirby Smith concentrated at 



MOVEMENT ON CINCINNATI, SEPTEMBER, 1 862. 59 

Knoxville and Bragg at Chattanooga, without hindrance, what- 
ever forces the Rebellion considered necessary. 

With Jefferson Davis it was a favorite policy to invade the 
Northern States. For the recovery of Tennessee and Ken- 
tucky, as a preliminary step to the invasion of Ohio, an army 
was collected on the upper Tennessee, concealed by the Cum- 
berland mountains. Kirby Smith passed at Rodgers and Big 
Creek gaps, and thus flanked the Union Gen. Morgan out of Cum- 
berland gap. Bragg marched up the Sequatchee valley, thus 
forcing Gen. Buell to give up his summer's work and hasten 
back to Nashville. There Bragg was still in advance of his 
right flank, compelling him to retreat to Louisville with all 
possible speed. 

Thus it was that the earth-works in front of Covington and 
Newport seriously attracted the attention of the Government. 
In the local engagements of the home guards and the United 
States troops, the latter were generally defeated. Kirby Smith 
was in advance of Bragg, having strength enough to bear down 
the Union opposition in the field and to occupy Lexington on 
the 1st of September. His detachments attacked Augusta, on 
the Kentucky side of the river above Cincinnati, on the 28th of 
August. A division, reputed to be about eight thousand 
strong, under Gen. Heath, was on the march by the Lexington 
turnpike to attack Covington, whose scouts made their appear- 
ance before our lines on the 3rd of September. 

Louisville, in a military sense, was much more exposed than 
Cincinnati, but Bragg halted near Bardstown and allowed Buell, 
with a fine army, to enter Louisville. At Cincinnati the Union 
forces were inadequate to meet even one division of enterpris- 
ing men, had it not been for the fortifications of the year pre- 
vious. When Gen. Heath made his first appearance on the 
hills overlooking Letonia Springs, he might have made a dash 
into Covington, between Fort Wright and the quarries. He 
could have held the place only a few hours, but might have 
done much mischief and carried away supplies and clothing, of 
which his ragged soldiers were badly in want. Too long delay 
there after plunder would have resulted in his capture. 

In the autumn of 1862 there was great activity in the Rebel, 



60 WAR MEMORANDA. 

armies along their entire front. They were executing a cher- 
ished purpose of that power to make the war aggressive. Gen. 
Rosecrans, under Grant, was attacked at Corinth by the South- 
western army, where it was defeated, and also at luka. Gen. 
Bragg, at Chattanooga, reputed to have 30,000 men, advanced 
unseen into the heart of the Cumberlands, from whence he 
found passes into Central Tennessee. By this secret and rapid 
movement he turned Gen. Buell, who lay from Decatur to 
Bridgeport, on the Memphis & Charleston railroad. Gen. 
Kirby Smith, from Knoxville. moved stealthily through gaps in 
the Cumberlands, outflanking the Union General Morgan at the 
gap ; and crossing the Cumberland river, wholly unheralded, ap- 
peared at London, Kentucky, on the 27th of August. He is 
reputed to have had twelve thousand troops, with whom he 
met and defeated Gen. Nelson at Richmond on the 30th. 

As soon as Gen. Morgan was compelled to retire toward the 
Ohio, Humphrey Marshall, reputed to have ten thousand men, 
found his way from Western Virginia through unfrequented 
gaps in the mountains into Kentucky, and entered Mt. Sterling 
on the 6th of September. Our troops about this time were 
driven down the Kanawha valley nearly to the Ohio. 

Pittsburg was threatened as a point near Lake Erie, the 
shores of which, when reached, would enable the Davis govern- 
ment to communicate directly with his English friends in 
Canada. East of the Alleghanies, Lee, Jackson and Longstreet 
were pulverising the Army of the Potomac under Gen. Pope, 
on their route into Pennsylvania. Under these circumstances 
the Federal government and its generals had abundant occupa- 
tion. Although Gen. Bragg was between Gen. Buell and 
Louisville and Munsfordsville on the 20th of August, he failed 
to make use of his position, and turned av/ay northeastward to 
Bardstown. Buell was thus enabled to reach Lousville without 
an engagement on the 28th of August. On the ist of Septem- 
ber, Kirby occupied Lexington and Frankfort. Both himself 
and Bragg appeared to have been engaged more upon a politi- 
cal than a warlike purpose. Several precious days were occu- 
pied in setting up the shadow of a civil government, issuing 



MOVEMENT ON CINCINNATI, SEPTEMBER, 1 862. 6l 

proclamations and forcing Confederate scrip upon the unfortu- 
nate citizens of Kentucky, Rebel and Union alike. 

Buell, on the ist of September, had organized three corps 
d'annke, which were put in motion that day upon Bardstown, 
two days after the advance of Heath's division reached the 
environs of Covington. Bragg retreated from Bardstown, not 
towards Lexington, and on the 7th of September the bat- 
tle of Perrysville or Champlin's Hills was fought. With what 
supplies they had accumulated in the blue grass region, the Con- 
federate forces concentrated and took the direction of Cumber- 
land gap. Major-Gen. H. G. Wright, in command of the 
Department of the Ohio, after the defeat of Gen. Nelson at 
Richmond, saw at once that his troops were unable to prevent 
Bragg and Kirby Smith from joining their forces. Gen. Lew. 
Wallace was ordered to Cincinnati with a few Indiana and Ohio 
regiments. A greater number of Gen. Wright's command 
marched for Louisville and joined Gen. Buell. 

On the 3d of September Gen. Wright proclaimed martial law, 
placed Gen. Wallace in command of the defences, ordered a 
detail of three thousand men to work on the trenches and sus- 
pended ordinary business. 

WAR POWERS. 

The rules and articles of war, adopted by Congress for the 
government of the army, and for volunteers or militia in active 
service form the code of " military law." In practice it is more 
absolute than the most monarchical civil government. Its 
essence is expressed in one short phrase "obedience to orders," 
concerning which the subordinate has no opinion and no choice. 
If the order is illegal, this does not effect the duty of obedience. 
Remonstrance would be a military offence, and hesitation also. 
Where the subordinate has rights they are to be asserted after- 
wards by modes prescribed in the rules and articles of war, 
which are for the government of those in service only. Beyond 
them is an unwritten code, incident to all forms of government 
still more arbitrary, known as "martial law" and the usages of 
war. It must be declared by the commander-in-chief for a terri- 
tory defined in orders. It embraces every person and every- 



62 WAR MEMORANDA. 

thing, and makes the commander the arbiter of Hfe and property 
in that district. He is justified in the abrogation of civil author- 
ity, especially in foreign countries, wherever he deems it neces- 
sary to success. In the ancient monarchies wars Avere waged 
on this terrible plan, culminating in a general destruction of 
property, capture and slaughter. In our times kings, em- 
perors, presidents and generals are presumed to have military 
reasons for the use of this power. It should be thought neces- 
sary to overpower or to weaken the enemy, to preserve disci- 
pline, procure supplies or prevent information. In the late 
Rebellion it accomplished the abolition of slavery. Without it 
armies might be not only useless but subject to annihilation. 
On the field of battle civil rights are of necessity overwhelmed 
until the issue is decided. 

Col. J. H. Simpson, of the United States engineers, after- 
wards brigadier-general, was assigned to the fortifications, with 
Captain Merrill, of the same corps, as his subordinate. By 
Col. Simpson's request, and also that of Gen. Wallace, I took 
charge of the field-works on that part of the line east of the 
Licking river. The accompanying miniature map gives a gen- 
eral idea of the entire line, which is about seven and a half 
(7/^) miles in length. Afterwards, when Gen. S. J. Burbridge 
was in command of the district of Kentucky, an order was 
issued naming the forts and batteries on this and other fortified 
lines of the State. Farther on, those in front of Covington and 
Newport will be more fully described. 

Gov. Tod, on the 4th, arrived at Cincinnati and organized 
the militia regiments into a brigade, under Gen. Joshua H. 
Bates, which crossed the Ohio and took post across the road 
leading up the river. The One Hundred and One Hundred and 
Second Ohio volunteers, with the First battery, and the Eigh- 
teenth United States regulars were on the left of Bates, extend- 
ing to the river. A brigade of the Ohio volunteers, composed 
of the Fiftieth, Seventy-ninth, Eighty-third and Eighty-ninth 
regiments, in command of Col. Taylor of the Fiftieth, were 
soon placed behind infantry parapets. Gov. Tod hurried for- 
ward the regiments in process of formation, including the 
Ninety-fifth and Ninety-seventh Ohio, promising Gen. Wright 



MOVEMENT ON CINCINNATI, SEPTEMBER, 1 862. 63 

of all troops, forty-two regiments, besides the Squirrel Hunters. 
For these he made a general call on the 6th. They came as 
fast as the railroads could bring them, an unnumbered host, 
each man with his gun, a pouch of bullets, a well-filled powder 
horn and a blanket. There was not time in the prodigious 
hurry of events for organization, but they made excellent 
pickets and scouts in front of the works. 

Our picket and skirmish lines met those of the enemy on the 
6th of September, one man being killed and others wounded. 
The detail of a regiment next to Fort Mitchel, on the right, 
came leisurely back and reported that they were driven in. 
The colonel asked if there had been any firing, to which the 
officer replied, ' * no, but there were a great many Rebels there." 
"Humph," said the colonel, "driven in. You leave your 
muskets here, get some picks and shovels and go and dig on 
the trenches." 

To the south and southwest of Fort Mitchel is an open coun- 
try three-fourths (^) of a mile to a mile, bordered on the 
farther side by a belt of timber-land. This timber formed a 
shelter to their scouts and skirmishers, who were plainly vis- 
ible. Behind it are farms on the Lexington pike, where they 
had a camp and a battery. The owner of one of these farms 
came to the fort saying that as he was walking through the 
battery a Rebel soldier seized his watch. The captain protected 
him and told the men that "the farmer had given them eggs, 
chickens and butter, and he must not be robbed ; but to-morrow 
we will be in Covington, where you can get plenty of watches." 

For nearly three months, in the fall of 1861, there was not 
rain enough to moisten the ground. The hills around Coving- 
ton and Cincinnati, which are generally rich with the verdure 
of grass, vineyards, orchards and ornamental trees, were now of 
a sombre brown color. The valleys, where there are generally 
springs and rivulets, were so dry that water for the troops was 
brought from the Ohio river by a water brigade of teams and 
casks. So many troops lying in the rear of the intrenchments 
with their horses, wagons and fatigue parties, pulverized the 
soil into flying dust, which filled the atmosphere. A hot sun 
from a clear sky caused the heat to be always oppressive. There 



64 WAR MEMORANDA. 

was very little water in the Licking river. On the route from 
Lexington, the Rebels reported that the most difificult of their 
supplies was water. The inhabitants offered them whisky in 
abundance, but were reserved as to the liquid of nature. How- 
ever, the season was not unhealthy. 

The city of Cincinnati voted unrestricted means to sustain the 
defense with all her material resources. Coal barges were col- 
lected and a pontoon bridge thrown across the river, there being 
no permanent bridge at that time. Gen. Wallace infused his 
own energy into every department of the service. A brigade 
of colored volunteer laborers were enrolled under Judge Dick- 
enson, who had their bivouac on the east bank of the Licking, 
near the woods. Several steamers were armed to patrol the 
river and prevent a crossing, as it was in many places passable 
by cavalry. R. M. Corwin, Esq., had command of this fleet. 
It was a wonder to every one how soon all the troops became 
available in some form to carry out military designs. 

FORTS AND BATTERIES. 

There were built eventually four forts, or enclosed earth- 
works, with artillery parapets and ditches. Counting from the 
right, there were on the west of the Licking Forts Mitchel and 
Wright; east of the Licking Forts Burnside and Whittlesey. 
Fort Mitchel was a regular work with four bastions, occupying 
a commanding position on the Lexington pike, with a redan 
covering the gateway in the eastern curtain. It would accom- 
modate about 2,500 men, and in 1861 had ten thirty-two 
pounder, smooth-bore iron guns. In 1862 some rifled parrot 
guns were put on the lines, but not more than one-third the 
number its length required. These might be used in the field 
or in the works. They are lighter, can be fired more rapidly, 
and have a closer and longer range. Smooth-bores were dis- 
pensed with as fast as rifled pieces could be fabricated. This 
line required at least 150 guns, besides howitzers and mortars, 
to drop shells into the ravines in front. Fort Wright is about 
half the capacity of Fort Mitchel, and is situated about three- 
fourths of a mile to the east, with a battery between them. It 
commands a part of the country reached by Fort Mitchel on 



MOVEMENT ON CINCINNATI, SEPTEMBER, 1 862. 65 

and near the Lexington pike. Both of them are independent 
outworks in front of the intrenched hne, where it makes an 
angle to the eastward. Not having access to my detailed map 
of the region, this one is given as a field sketch, and on account 
of its reduced scale the batteries cannot be represented. To 
the north or right of Fort Mitchel there were four. The largest, 
at the extreme right on the Ohio river, could mount eight guns. 
It was named after Col. J. L. K. Smith, of the Forty-third 
Ohio, who was killed at Corinth. Between Fort Wright and 
the Licking rjver were eight batteries, most of them on high 
bluffs overlooking the valley of Deer creek towards the south. 
East of the Licking, the end of a ridge about 250 feet above 
the river presented a good location for a battery, looking up 
the valley of Deer creek and also up the railway, the canal and 
the Licking. This ridge curves to the northward around Bat- 
tery Shaler, Fort Burnside and the cemetery to the turnpike 
from Newport. This part of the Hne, like that on the west, is 
strong by nature and easily made impregnable by engineering. 
In this space there were four batteries. The timberin the val- 
ley to the south and on the slope was felled. From Fort Burn- 
side easterly to the Ohio river, the natural advantages are not 
as good. Between it and Fort Whittlesey there were two bat- 
teries, and at the extreme left one. More than one line of rifle- 
pits was made across this space, which were occupied, or had a 
full complement of troops in supporting distance. In all there 
were twenty batteries, but very deficient in guns. Owing ta 
the drought the ground was solid ; roads behind the line were 
easily made and kept in repair, on which pieces could be trans- 
ferred and concentrated on very short notice. For its length 
it is seldom that a line can be found which could sooner be put 
in a state of defense. The country in front is made up of sharp 
hills and valleys, but easily passed by an army. Our plan con- 
templated three forts of about one thousand men each ; a few 
miles out; one on the Lexington pike, the Licking river and the 
Cold Spring pike. 

By the 6th of September Heath would have been repulsed at 
any point of attack he might have selected. By the 8th he 
would have required seventy-five thousand men to make an im- 



66 WAR MEMORANDA. 

pression. Besides the volunteer regiments on the ground, a 
division of Gen. Curtiss' command, from the Department of 
Missouri, eight thousand strong, was on the way. These 
troops had been in the campaign which resulted in the battle 
of Pea Ridge. They arrived on the nth or 12th, and were 
quartered in the Baptist College. The lines were then so strong 
and well manned that the combined forces of Bragg, Smith and 
Marshall would not have ventured an attack. On the 7th the 
battle of Perrysville, or Champlin Hills, was fought, and Gen. 
Bragg retreated. It required several days for him to commu- 
nicate with Smith, Marshall and their numerous outposts. Gen. 
Heath, who does not appear to have decided to withdraw until 
the nth, began the march on the 12th, and on the 13th disap- 
peared. A hospital train had been sent from Cincinnati, Sep- 
tember 1 2th, on the Lexington railroad, with relief for our sick 
and wounded at that place. It was stopped by Heath, but on 
communication with Kirby Smith, was allowed to pass. The 
train was enabled to get within nine miles of Lexington, which 
was virtually abandoned by the enemy. After Bragg's change 
of policy from terrible war and Yankee annihilation, what fight- 
ing occurred in Kentucky took place on their part as an escort 
for the quartermasters' trains. 

Gov. Tod on the 13th ordered back all Squirrel Hunters then 
on their way, much to their chagrin. Those on the lines were 
sent to their homes. Soon after the governor prepared an 
acknowledgment of their services, which was addressed indi- 
vidually to each one of them. 



J. B. M'PHERSON. 67 



CHAPTER N\. — Unmi Getierals. 



GEN. J. B. M'PHERSON. 

I HAD never met Gen. McPherson until the attack on Fort 
Donelson. Afterwards, during the second day at Shiloh 
Church, he brought orders from Gen. Grant, while we were 
on our way to the mouth of Snake creek, and I never saw him 
again. My personal acquaintance with him is, therefore, very 
limited, embracing only a short conversation, wholly official. 
Although our troops had met with a great disaster, of which he 
was a witness, I found him calm, courteous and perfectly clear 
in giving his instructions. He rode a good horse, and hurried 
back along the Owl creek road full of life and vigor, to find 
Gen. Wallace. 

Gen. McPherson graduated at the United States Military 
Academy, at the head of the class of 1853. He was promoted, 
of course, into the engineers' corps. Until 1861 he performed 
the usual service of a lieutenant of engineers at Boston, New 
York, Delaware Bay and San Francisco, constructing perma- 
nent fortifications. In August, 1861, he was promoted to be 
Captain of Engineers. In November, Gen. Halleck made him 
an aide, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. From February to 
May, 1862, he was chief engineer to Gen. Grant. In May, 
1862, he was promoted to be brigadier of volunteers, and 
placed in charge of the western railways. In the attack on luka, 
he commanded a brigade, where he developed so much ability 
as a brigadier-general that he was soon after commissioned 
major-general of volunteers. 

Gen. Grant not only gave him his confidence as an officer, 
but formed the closest personal friendship. The Seventeenth 
army corps was soon placed in McPherson's hands. We hear 
of him successfully at Holly Springs, Memphis, Vicksburg, 



68 WAR MEMORANDA. 

Grand Gulf, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hill, and again at 
Vicksburg, all the while growing in the confidence of his supe- 
riors. He was not one of those commanders of whom his infe- 
riors stood in awe. His manners were genial and courteous. 
He was already a thorough student in the art of war, becoming 
more and more accomplished in his profession by practice in 
the field. 

In October,^i863, he was entrusted with an army corps, which 
in Europe is the command of a lieutenant-general. When the 
movement to Atlanta was planned, McPherson was given the 
right wing, composed of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seven- 
teenth corps, constituting a full army. He had already acquired 
the confidence of both Grant and Sherman. The plan of the 
first movement of the Atlanta campaign involved the capture 
of the railway in Johnson's rear, at or near Resaca. This was 
assigned to McPherson. Sherman wished to give Johnson a 
staggering blow at the outset. His plan of attack was one that 
appears to be as certain of success as anything can be in war. 
While Thomas made an assault upon Mill Creek gap, Schofield, 
with the left wing, came down from the north upon Dalton. 
McPherson was ordered south, along the west side of the 
mountains to Snake Creek gap, about half a day's march west 
from Resaca. He did not capture Resaca or hold the railway, 
and Johnson escaped. He discovered his mistake before night, 
and before any criticism had reached him. His frank assump- 
tion of whatever blame attached to the result and all its conse- 
quences, was in full accord with his noble character. Sherman 
was chagrined, but even his impetuous nature attributed the 
failure only to an error of judgment in regard to the strength of 
Resaca. 

As this was the only censure which fell upon McPher- 
son in ten engagements where he held an important command, 
should we allow this single instance to throw a shadow 
upon his fame? How many of our generals have succeeded in 
nine battles out of ten? In the fortunes of war, to win more 
victories than he suffers defeats, ensures the reputation of a 
commander. Let us look a moment at the situation of Resaca. 
McPherson was not peremptorily ordered to attack the place. 



GEN. J. B. M'PHERSON. 69 

but only to cut the railway. The day was well advanced before 
he could reconnoitre the works. He perceived that John- 
son had constructed roads from Dalton to Snake Creek gap, 
which was in our rear, and where the trains were left. In Mc- 
Pherson's judgment, before Resaca could be carried the Rebel 
army might attack his trains at the gap. Although their retreat 
to the gap proved to be an error, I do not see how, with the 
hasty information he was able to get, his conclusions were not 
sound. A dare-devil commander would have taken the risk, 
and would have succeeded. A calm, intelligent general would 
have declined it. Good generals are not made of dare-devils, 
but of men who act upon their conclusions, based upon the cir- 
cumstances. 

We all know how he retained Sherman's confidence, and 
went on winning more reputation, at Kingston, Dallas and 
Kenesaw until the fatal 22d of July, before Atlanta. He was 
then only thirty-five years of age. I can say nothing of him 
more true than the brief eulogies of Gen. Sherman and Gen. 
Grant. 

On the fall of Gen. McPherson, Sherman reported the 
event to headquarters at Washington, as a part of his account 
of the action, in which he said : " He fell booted and spurred 
as the gallant knight and gentleman should wish. Not his the 
loss, but the country's. This army will mourn his death, and 
cherish his memory as that of one, who, comparatively young, 
had risen by his merit and ability to the command of one of 
the best armies which the Nation has called into existence to 
vindicate its honor and integrity. History tells of few who so 
blended the grace and gentleness of the friend with the dignity, 
grace and courage of the soldier." 

Gen. Grant was still more grieved by his death and says of 
him: "He was one of the most able of engineers, and the 
most skilful of generals. The Nation grieves at the loss of one 
so dear to the Nation's cause. Every officer and soldier who 
served under him felt the highest reverence for his patriotism, 
for his zeal, his almost unequaled ability, his amiability, and all 
those manly virtues which can adorn a commander," 



70 WAR MEMORANDA. 

GEN. ORMSBY M'KNIGHT MITCHEL. 

Gen. O. M. Mitchel was born in Kentucky, his parents 
removing to Lebanon, Warren county, Ohio, while he was 
quite young, and where his father soon died. He obtained a 
warrant to the United States Military Academy at the age of 
sixteen, and not having the means to pay his passage, made 
the journey there on foot, in June, 1825. Mitchel was some- 
what below average size, well proportioned and very active. 
He was detailed on his graduation, in 1829, as assistant Professor 
of Mathematics. There was at that time a very interesting lady 
at West Point, the widow of a late officer, Lieut. Grier. Lieut. 
Mitchel soon united his fortunes with hers, whose social and 
intellectual qualities were of a high order, and whose personal 
graces made her a general favorite. After a long and exces- 
sively painful sickness she died at Albany, in i860. 

In 1 83 1 Lieut. Mitchel left the service by resignation, and 
located at Cincinnati as a lawyer. His incessant activity of 
mind and body required more occupation. For ten years he 
was Professor of Astronomy and Natural Philosophy in- the 
Cincinnati college, captain of a company of home guards and 
civil engineer. He made the survey of the Sandy and Beaver 
canal, from the Ohio river to Bolivar, and of the Mississippi 
& Ohio railroad. In 1844 he originated the Cincinnati Observ- 
atory and became its director. He had the faculty in the lec- 
ture room and with the pen to make astronomy interesting, 
because his inclination and talents were absorbed in that sub- 
ject. From 1845 to 1869 he published five volumes on the 
subject, all of them of high repute in the field of science, writ- 
ten in a happy style, like that of the lecture room, which gave 
to a dry subject a popular interest. In this country there was 
bestowed upon him the degree of LL. D.; and in England 
that of Fellow in the Royal Astronomical Society. 

In every pursuit Mitchel was not only industrious but zeal- 
ous. His investigations were profound, testing the accuracy of 
his conclusions by strict mathematics, unbiased by theory or 
the hope of reputation. His magazine, known as the Siderial 
Messenger, and his work on the planetary and stellar worlds 



GEN. ORMSBY M. MITCHEL. 



71 



are examples of his enthusiasm and of his popularity as an 
astronomer, 

A riot occurred on Sycamore street, Cincinnati, which his 
company was called upon to put down. The mob hurled 
stones at his soldiers, who opened fire upon them. None were 
killed but several so badly wounded that they were left in the 
street. One person, who was a looker-on, sued Captain 
Mitchel for his injuries, but the court decided that bystanders 
cannot be distinguished from the mob, and must keep away or 
take the chances. 

My first acquaintance with him occurred on a cold winter 
evening in 1828 and 1829, in the hall of the old North Barracks, 
A cadet from Georgia had assaulted Lieut. Thornton, who was 
commandant in the building. The punishment for striking an 
officer is death, for which the young man was tried and con- 
victed. He was confined in the cadet prison, on the second 
floor, where I was on post. It was part of the unwritten code 
that prisoners should not be m.ade unnecessarily uncomfortable, 
and that they should not compromise the sentinels. The prison 
door was not locked, and our muskets were not loaded. Pas- 
sing on that beat, the back of the sentry was half the time 
away from the door. The prisoner was a powerful man, and 
coming out of the prison, walked up behind me, threw one arm 
around my neck and musket and drew a pistol. I called for the 
corporal of the guard. Corporal O. M. Mitchel was at that 
moment coming up the south stairway with the relief He and 
his relief sprang forward, but the culprit ran down the other 
stairs, and was soon captured. I was placed under arrest for 
allowing him to escape, and we were marched under guard to 
the mess hall together. His sentence was commuted at Wash- 
ington to dismissal, and I was released. From that night until 
his death, Mitchel was a steadfast, personal friend. 

The friendships and hates of army life are more intense than 
they can be among civilians. There is a relation between offi- 
cers and their men that is difficult to conceive of, and cannot 
exist in civil life. On the part of the soldier there may be 
respect, regard, and even affection, or there may be mortal 
hatred, due to the manner in which arbitrary power is admin- 



72 WAR MEMORANDA. 

istered. Soldiers are often willing to die for their chiefs, but 
there are cases where a commander is in danger from a bullet 
from his own men when a favorable opportunity occurs in the 
confusion of a battle. Between officers there are not only 
friendships that bear the test of martyrdom, but there are 
rivalries and jealousies of inexpressible bitterness. In foreign 
armies they result in duels, which, in our country, are repressed 
by the law of etiquette and the army regulations. 

The opportunity of a superior to inflict personal wrongs upon 
his subordinates within these restraints are, however, very 
numerous, to which no retort can be made. 

When the Rebel guns opened on Fort Sumter, Mitchel was 
deeply engaged in his favorite science, as Astronomer-in-Chief 
of the Dudley Observatory, at Albany, New York. He soon 
received a commission as brigadier-general of volunteers, and 
was assigned to the department of the Ohio, with headquarters 
at Cincinnati. The department was extended fifteen miles into 
Kentucky, to enable him to protect Cincinnati by works on 
that side of the river, the details of which may be seen in chap- 
ter five. 

The enemy did not seriously threaten that city in 1861. 
Gen. Mitchel became anxious for active work in the field, and 
proposed a raid into East Tennessee, which was not approved. 
The command of a division was given him in Buell's army, sta- 
tioned on the Nashville railroad, at Bacon's creek. His restless 
aspirations were again doomed to disappointment. The army 
was not attacked, and the forward movement lingered. It 
was not until the fall of Donelson that Mitchel's division took 
the lead in a rapid march on Nashville, which he entered on the 
23d of February, 1862. The division was pushed through Ten- 
nessee, occupying Huntsville, Decatur and the railroad east to 
Bridgeport. He possessed the activity and enthusiasm suited 
to western troops, and the faculty of short, rousing speeches to 
infuse them with his own enterprise. 

Before active work commenced in that region, in the fall of 
1862, he was ordered to the new and distant command of the 
Tenth army corps, with headquarters at Beaufort, South Caro- 
lina. Here he was soon prostrated with yellow fever, and on 



GEN. S. R. CURTIS. 73 

the 30th day of October, died quite suddenly at the age of 
fifty-two. In his last monnents he was not able to articulate, 
but passed away with his eyes raised and one hand pointing 
towards heaven, where he believed his spirit would instantly 
meet that of his departed wife. 

It was a source of incessant regret with Gen. Mitchel that he 
could not have a command in a general battle. With his 
inspiring presence, his fertility of resource and his ambition for 
victory, there is no doubt he would have won a name in the 
field, if his good fortune had furnished the opportunity. 

GEN, S. R. CURTIS. 

In all the wars since the origin of this ISTation some members 
of this family have engaged in active and honorable service. 
Patriotic ambition may become hereditary, and, stimulated by 
example and by household traditions, may go increasing in 
strength for many generations. 

Jotham, the grandfather of Gen. Curtis, was a captain in the 
Connecticut line, during the war of Independence. His father, 
Zarah, enlisted at the age of sixteen in Captain Webb's com- 
pany of mounted men of the famous regiment of Col. Sheldon, 
Gen. Talmadge's brigade, and served to the close of the war. 
Hosmer, an elder brother, joined a volunteer regiment called 
out in 18 1 3 by Gov. Meigs, on the Maumee. When the Mexi- 
can war came on, in 1846, Samuel was appointed adjutant-gen- 
eral of Ohio, in command of Camp Washington, and was made 
colonel of the Third Ohio volunteers. 

He was the youngest of nine children of Zarah and Phally 
Yale Curtis, of Connecticut, and was born Februarys, 1805, at 
Champlain, New York, on the Canada line. In 1809 the family 
removed to Newark, Licking county, Ohio, where they under- 
went the usual experience of pioneers. The father was a 
farmer. Both parents were respected in that community, were 
active supporters of schools, society and religion. 

Samuel Ryan was deputy clerk of the court when, in 1827, he 
received an appointment as cadet at West Point. Two broth- 
ers, Hosmer and Henry B. Curtis, settled at Mt. Vernon, 
Knox county, Ohio. 



74 WAR MEMORANDA. 

The military spirit of his ancestors, and a thirst for distinc- 
tion in war, were conspicuous features of his character. His. 
figure was tall, with an erect military presence. At the 
academy he went through all the grades of cadet officers. In. 
disposition he was remarkable for good nature, fond of music, 
social, temperate and popular. 

After graduating in the infantry, July, 1831, Lieut. Curtis, 
did duty at Fort Gibson, in Arkansas, about a year, when he 
resigned to take charge as principal engineer of the improve- 
ment of the Muskingum river by the State of Ohio. In this 
work he continued until it was nearly completed in 1839, but 
was suspended for political reasons. He surveyed a route for 
a railroad from Bolivar, on the Tuscarawas, as a feeder to the 
Sandy and Beaver canal, through the State westerly to the 
mouth of the Auglaize, Being a good draftsman, he made a 
large manuscript map of the State of Ohio, which may yet be 
in some of the offices at Columbus. His industrious habits, in 
the meantime, led him to read for the practice of law, and, being 
admitted to the bar, he settled at McConnellsville, Morgan 
county, Ohio. 

In 1 84 1 he ran for the Ohio Senate in that district and was. 
defeated. About this time he married Miss Belinda Bucking- 
ham, of Putnam, whose father, Stephen, felled the first trees 
where his cabin was built. Ebenezer Buckingham, who mar- 
ried a daughter of Gen. Rufus Putnam, of Marietta, was her 
uncle, and, with her father, was a pioneer and founder of the 
town. Mrs. Curtis still survives at Keokuk, Iowa, a lady of 
fine acquirements and agreeable manners, who has the esteem 
of the family of her late husband and of the citizens of Keokuk. 
Mr. Curtis removed to Wooster, Ohio, where he was engaged 
in legal practice when the Mexican war was commenced in 
1846. He was appointed by Gov. Bartley adjutant-general of 
the State, and on the organization of the Third regiment of 
volunteers was elected colonel. It was quite significant of the 
sagacity of American citizens that the first volunteer regiments, 
from Ohio elected for colonels men who had a military educa- 
tion, without reference to politics. 



GEN. S. R. CURTIS. 75 

The general and field officers appointed by the Federal 
executive for the new regiments of regulars, were selected 
more for political than military reasons. Nothing can be con- 
ceived of more depressing than the position of a soldier or sub- 
ordinate officer under a commander whom they feel to be 
incompetent. This feeling of confidence, or want of confidence, 
is instinctive with intelligent men. They have a terrible inter- 
est at stake, not alone of success but of life or death. To be 
exposed to slaughter for no useful purpose is the most trying, 
because it is the most desperate situation in which men can be 
placed. With confidence there is the hope and the inspiration 
of victory; without it the fall of comrades in battle presents a 
spectacle of heart-sickening despair. 

The regiment under Col. Curtis advanced from Matamoras, 
through Camargo and Monterey to Saltillo, of which he was 
made military governor, reaching there the day after the battle 
of Buena Vista. After the junction of the troops under Gen. 
Wool with those of Gen. Taylor, he became the inspector- 
general of the command. When the term of service of the 
regiment expired it was mustered out, and Col. Curtis soon 
moved with his family to the new town of Keokuk, in Iowa, 
to take charge of the improvement of the river Des Moines. He 
soon became deeply interested in Asa Whitney's project for a 
railway from the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean. In the local 
and general conventions, on that subject, he was generally pres- 
ent as an earnest advocate of the project. Having been elected 
to Congress in 1857, he there continued to labor for it still more 
effectively. He was re-elected and was entering on a third 
term when the Rebellion occurred. His home popularity was 
not due to the schemes of a politician, but to his general bon 
hommie and the confidence of his constituents in his honesty, 
public spirit and patriotism. 

The Second Iowa volunteers elected him its colonel, and get- 
ting first in the field, was ordered to the Hannibal & St. Joe 
railway, in Missouri. The prompt occupation of that line 
saved the road and cut off the Rebel organization in northern 
Missouri. He was soon appointed a brigadier of volunteers, 
with the command of the well-known expedition against Ster- 



^6 ' " WAR MEMORANDA. 

ling Price, in southwestern Missouri, which resulted in the 
battle of Pea Ridge, and the dispersion of Price's army. For 
this he received a commission as major-general. 

In his home, the family was the absorbing object of a very 
affectionate heart. In southwestern Missouri a favorite daugh- 
ter died while nursing the troops, and a son, who was on the 
staff, was killed by guerillas. 

His command marched to the Mississippi river, at Helena, 
Arkansas, in time to be present in Cincinnati, in October, 1862, 
when that place was threatened by Kirby Smith. Gen. Curtis 
was assigned to the department of Missouri. The administra- 
tion having adopted a policy of conciliation, Gen. Fremont and, 
afterwards. Gen. Curtis were removed for political reasons. 

The last Pacific railroad convention was held in Chicago in 
1864, of which he was president. The bill to authorize its con- 
struction, for which he had so long labored, was soon after 
made a law. When the work was so far advanced that sections 
were offered to the Government for acceptance. Gen. Curtis was 
appointed one of their commissioners to examine the work. In 
1866 Gen. J. H. Simpson, an army friend, and Dr. White, who 
were his colleagues, returned to Omaha, after examining three 
hundred and six miles of the road. They crossed the Missouri 
on foot upon the ice in a severe winter storm, and entered a 
carriage at Council Bluffs to reach the Northwestern railway. 
They were barely out of the town when the general turned pale, 
fell forward, and was dead before a house could be reached. 
During the trip, and the day previous, he was in apparent 
health and unusually good spirits. His sudden decease was 
due to an aneurism of the aorta. Many deaths have occurred, 
among officers of both armies, equally shocking, from the 
effects of previous exposure, and the excessive strain, both 
mental and physical, to which they had been subjected. 

The proceedings at Keokuk, on the occasion of his funeral, 
were not merely of a ceremonial character. Places of business 
were closed, the courts adjourned, including the Common Pleas, 
the United States District Court, and the Supreme Court of 
Iowa. The addresses and resolutions were earnest and touch- 
ing. Better and deeper than this was the great crowd of citi- 



GEN. J. p. COX. 12 

'ieiis who joined in the procession to the cemetery on a severe 
winter day, with an expression of profound personal grief. 

GEN. J. D. cox. 

In 1 86 1 Gen. Cox was State senator from Trumbull county 
■district, which indicates clearly that he was an avowed anti- 
slavery man. Gen. Garfield represented the Portage county 
district in the upper house at the same time. They were very 
young men for those positions, but filled them so ably that they 
Avere acknowledged to be leaders. Personally they were inti- 
mate friends ; quite like college chums. Both were prominent 
as moralists and professors of religion, but of different sects. 
Both were close students and persuasive speakers. While they 
were firm in their convictions against negro slavery, they were 
not offensive nor disposed to treat their opponents with disre- 
spect. Undoubtedly they agreed with Gov. Chase in regarding 
the Rebellion as a fortunate opportunity for the legal extirpation 
of slavery. 

A convention had been suggested by the South, which was 
•held at Washington, in which there had been a full consent to 
nearly everything that was demanded of them. It was evi- 
dently a piece of diplomacy to gain time for organization. 
There was no legal power on their part, if there had been a dis- 
position to enforce the conclusions of the convention. Behind 
their delegates, the people were in a state of unreasoning sedi- 
tion, bent upon the disruption of the Republic or supremacy 
over it When their appeal to the trial by battle failed, a large 
class have not honorably accepted the result, but continue to 
whine over it as unreasoning as before. But the beneficent 
effects of the convention were of value in consolidating the 
wavermg sentiment of persons at the North, who had a 
sincere desire to avoid war on the part of the slave States. 
All such opinions were dissipated on the organization of the 
Confederacy, which went steadily on to the bombardment of 
Sumter. 

Gen. Cox had been a general of militia, taking pride in the 
annual brigade and regimental musters. As far as practicable 
lie avoided display, studying carefully the drill of the soldiers 



78 WAR MEMORANDA. 

of the company and battalion. He was given the command of 
one of the brigades of miHtia at Camp Denison. He applied 
himself to this, as to all other occupations, with assiduity. The 
Ohio legislature had organized three brigades, which were pre- 
pared to cross the Ohio before they were mustered into the 
service of the United States. Gen. Cox was assigned to the 
Kanawha valley, as has been related in chapter two. 

Gen. Garfield was urged by the governor to take an appoint- 
ment in one of the regiments as lieutenant-colonel, but hesitated 
in regard to his capacity for military service. He expressed 
himself as a total stranger to military matters in any form, from 
the lowest details to everything above them. It required 
decided urging on the part of his friends to overcome a deep- 
seated dread of failure. 

Gen. Cox, without pretense, had an abiding confidence of 
success, or, at least, of an ability to do his duty. In person he 
is tall, graceful and capable of endurance. His manners are 
pleasing, having an agreeable physiognomy, a uniform tem- 
perament, and an aspect becoming a military uniform. If he 
had possessed more dash he would have better pleased the 
undisciplined personnel of war with which he had to deal. But 
his demeanor won their respect where more pretension would 
not. If he had made personal efforts for promotion, many offi- 
cers who did, would not have outranked him. 

The prolonged service of Gen. Cox in one grade is too well 
known to require repetition. His promotion was once deter- 
mined on and reported to the Senate, but withdrawn. His 
rank among the brigadiers, however, gave him the command of 
a division, and finally a corps, by seniority, until a commission 
as major-general of volunteers arrived. Patience is certainly a 
military virtue, but there is no occasion where it is so difficult 
to practice as while an officer is being systematically over- 
slaughed. 

At the end of the war he became a resident of Cincinnati, and 
resumed the law. It is well known how he was elected gover- 
nor of Ohio, and appointed to a place in the Federal Cabinet. 
His capacity to act in untried positions has been shown as pre- 
sident of the Western & Lake Erie railway. Two of Scrib-. 



GEN. M. D. LEGGETT. 79 

ner's volumes of war history are of his composition. In the 
domain of science, Gen, Cox has kept pace with the progress of 
the age in a way that is not demonstrative, but, Hke his other 
qualities, more profound than brilliant. Having occupied so 
many prominent situations, quite diverse from each other, he is 
still a comparatively young man.- On the subject of assimila- 
tion of the white and colored races in the South, he differed from 
his Republican friends in the days of reconstruction. The state 
of society in the slave States since that period has proven the 
sagacity of his conclusions. 

GEN. M. D. LEGGETT. 

Gen. Leggett was reared in Geauga county, Ohio. As a 
young man he attended the academy at Kirtland, near where 
the Mormon temple is still standing. From a rude country 
life, with even studious habits, he became a teacher of country 
schools and was advanced to be superintendent of schools in 
Akron, Summit county. From Akron he was transferred to 
the same position at Zanesville, Ohio, where he lived at the 
outbreak of the Rebellion. 

Governor Denison appointed him colonel of the Seventy- 
sixth Ohio volunteers, which in March, 1862, was assigned to 
the Third brigade. Third division of the command under Grant, 
on the Tennessee river. His first experience on the battle-field 
was at Shiloh Church, where he gave promise of success as a 
commander of troops in active service. 

Soon after, in the operations in the vicinity of Bolivar, Ten- 
nessee, as chief of the brigade, a large force of the enemy were 
resisted and dispersed in a manner so daring and skilful that 
the result was the promotion of Col. Leggett to a brigadier- 
general. 

Whoever reads the narrative of the operations of the Third 
brigade at Corinth, thence south into Mississippi, back to 
Memphis, thence to Vicksburg, and around to the rear by way 
of Port Huron to Jackson, in the battle of Champion Hills, in 
the assault on Vicksburg, the investment of Atlanta, and on 
their march to the sea, will find that Gen. Leggett's name 
appears on all the reports with frequent and honorable mention. 



•J^P WAR MEMORANDA. 

When the war ended he was seriously discussed as a candidate 
for governor of Ohio, when the nomination fell to Gen. R. B. 
Hayes. 

He was not long in civil life before the office of Commissioner 
of Patents was offered and accepted by him. After filling that 
position several years, Gen. Leggett resigned, returned to Ohio, 
within easy range of the home of his childhood, taking up a 
residence at Cleveland, where he still lives. His occupation is 
that of an attorney for patents, involving superior skill in 
mechanics and mathematics, with legal knowledge of a high 
order and capacity as a speaker. In Cleveland he has been 
prominent in public affairs, especially in matters of education, 
as an advocate of benevolent enterprises, and as an active poli- 
tician in the Republican party. In person. Gen. Leggett is 
squarely built, with a physique that indicates great physical 
endurance, which in war is full half the element of success. His 
physical and mental organization are equally broad. These con- 
nected with a versatility that gives scope to great personal in- 
dustry, prove him to be one of the prominent men brought 
to the front by a patriotic war, 

GEN. M. F. FORCE. 

When the civil war of 1861 was fairly inaugurated in the val- 
ley of the Ohio, Gen. Force was a practicing attorney in Cin- 
cinnati. He joined a military company of the city, which, by 
way of exercise, made a march to Camp Denison, where it was 
courteously received by the newly-formed volunteer regiments. 
He was soon after appointed a major in the Twentieth Ohio 
infantry; then came his promotion to the lieutenant-colonelcy, 
and, reporting at Camp Chase, he proved to be an excellent 
drill officer for the companies that were coming in to form the 
regiment. 

The history of the Twentieth shows what efficiency he devel- 
oped as a commanding officer of the regiment, the brigade, and 
eventually of the division. Stooping over his wounded friend, 
Adjutant Walker, in the terrible conflict at Atlanta, he was 
severely wounded in the head. When the army was disbanded 
he was offered a colonelcy in the regular infantry, which was 



GEN. M. F. FORCE. 8 1 

declined in order to return to civil life and to the practice of 
law. It was not long before Gen. Force was elected a judge of 
the Superior Court of Hamilton county. His administration of 
justice has been so satisfactory that he still continues to hold 
that office. He was nominated by the Republican party for 
Congress, but was not elected. 

From his father, the late Peter Force, of Washington, he 
inherits a taste for literature, especially for history and ethnol- 
ogy. His publications, especially those upon the theory of evo- 
lution, devised by Darwin, and upon the character of the 
Mound Builders, also his war memoranda, filling one volume 
of the Scribner series, display calm and faithful investigation, 
with a clear and facile mode of expression. His address, 
delivered at the first reunion of the Twentieth regiment, 
on the anniversary of the battle of Shiloh Church, April 
6, 1876, shows the finish of his style and the close personal 
relations that existed with his men. 



82 WAR MEMORANDA. 



CHAPTER VII. 



MAJOR BOSTWICK S EXPERIENCE. 

In 1 86 1 Major N. Bostwick was a farmer in Licking County, 
Ohio, and an active member of the County Agricultural Soci- 
ety. His farm was well stocked with high bred cattle, horses, 
hogs and sheep. He was not subject to military duty, but his 
ancestors had fought in the army of the Revolution, and he was 
inspired to do the same in the Southern Rebellion. One son 
was of military age, another was not ; but both joined the com- 
pany raised by their father for the 20th Ohio Volunteers. Mrs. 
Bostwick and the younger children were left in charge of the 
premises and the stock. 

At the battle of Champion Hills, on the 6th of May, 1863, 
the 20th Ohio was compelled, by the exigencies of the day, to 
lie on the ground in a hot sun several hours, awaiting the order 
to charge. A number of the men and officers were sun-struck, 
from which they fell out as the regiment moved up the hill on 
the Rebel line. Capt. Meleck died with several men, and Major 
Bostwick was so much prostrated that the effects remain to this 
time. 

About 2 p. M. of the 22d of July, 1864, he was captured by 
three Rebel soldiers, during the battle of Atlanta, and led by 
them to a captain and thirty-nine men, near to town, who 
guarded the prisoners. His sad experience from that hour in 
Southern prisons, and his sufferings during a month in the 
mountains, effecting an escape, appear like a horrid romance. 
But most of the details are from his own lips. The whole can- 
not be reported here, but only the salient events. 

Before reaching the Rebel guard a soldier shot at him, the 
ball striking a corner of one eye. A piece of the ball went in- 
side of the socket, the main part making an ugly and painful 



•MAJOR BOSTWICK's EXPERIENCE. 83 

wound on the cheek, cutting an artery, which bled profusely. 
He had just received a new outfit, including a beaver hat, a 
twelve dollar pair of boots, and a sword. The captain took 
his hat, sword and watch, and said, "damn you, I want those 
boots." " You can't have them while I am alive." The offi- 
cer then threatened to kill him, and stooped to seize the boots. 
Major B. gave him a kick in the breast, which sent him several 
feet sprawling on the ground. The major, expecting to be 
killed, gave the masonic grand hail of distress, to which the Rebel 
captain responded, saying, "well, keep your boots." He then 
put his own hat on one of his soldiers, whose ragged and worth- 
less hat he jammed on the major's head, down over the wounded 
eye. It was ten days before the fragment of lead was taken 
out. 

They were marched about ten miles, and lay down. Among 
them were Capt. Humiston, Lieut. Colby and Lieut. Rush, of 
the 20th Ohio. They had nothing to eat until the 24th, when 
they received a tincup of corn meal. The men were taken to 
Andersonville, the officers to Griffin. Col. Shed, of the 30th 
Illinois, and Col. Scott, of the 68th Ohio, were with them. The 
latter leaped from the train at night, but was caught by hounds 
and brought to Macon. 

" Here were about 1,800 officers, with no shelter for two weeks.". 
The captains and field officers were ordered to Charleston, S. C; 
the lieutenants to Savannah. At Charleston we were put in 
the old workhouse, where I had bilious fever. Col. Scott 
nursed me until he was sent away. Our rations were mouldy 
cakes of rice and bad pork. Dr. Todd, a brother of Mrs. Lin- 
coln, was our surgeon, who treated us kindly, but could get 
little medicine, and no proper hospital rations. 

We planned an escape, making a saw of an old knife, to cut 
away the bars. I also got an impression of the key to the lock 
of a door on the second story. Colonels Shed and Scott 
opened the door with my key. I went again with Captain 
Pease, and the key would not work. Some of the Georgia men 
on guard favored our escape. I might have been exchanged 
with Colonels Shed and Scott, but was too sick to travel. Cap- 
tain McFadden, of the Fifty-ninth New York, nursed me. At 



84 WAR MEjfORANDA. 

8 A. M. of October 6th, we were put into cattle cars that had 
not been cleaned, and started for Columbia, S. C. I sat against 
the side of the car, sick, all day and all night. The next morn- 
ing we were left in a field, in a pouring rain, under guard of the 
provost-martial. 

The next day the prisoners were taken across the Combahee 
river. I could not walk. The guards cursed me, and pushed 
me with their bayonets. There were others as bad as myself. 
About I p. M. we reached camp. I was a mere skeleton. For 
three weeks we had neither medicines nor medical atendance ; 
our rations the same as at Charleston. At last Dr. Ladrones 
came as our surgeon, a kind, cheerful man, who placed me and 
twelve others on stretchers, and put us in a tent. We were al- 
most eaten up by lice. He said: "You shall not die; don't 
think of escaping; I will get you paroled." He gave me fif- 
teen grains of quinine at a dose. I had also lung fever, but in 
about three weeks could walk, and went to the Saluda river, 
where there was a Union family who gave me milk, butter and 
biscuit. Every day our men would lie down and die. There 
were about i, lOO left. Some escaped through the vaults to the 
river. I determined to escape. The good Union women 
brought good cooked food to our hospital tent. 

It might not be prudent, even at this time, to publish the 
names of the Union men who helped us to escape. We were 
not betrayed by any of them, their wives or families. Our grat- 
itude to them all is as great as there are words to express, but 
we might not do them a favor by relating their acts of kindness 
towards us. There was Captain McFadden, Lt. H. C. Paine, 
myself, and two officers of the Army of the Potomac, who de- 
termined to take the risks of reaching the Federal lines. For 
many days we made haversacks, collected provisions and cloth- 
ing, got directions as to the route, and laid our plans to get out 
of the stockade one by one. 

There was a rumor of a change of prisons, which caused us 
to leave one day earlier and before we were entirely ready. On 
the 1st day of December, 1864, by many strategems and the 
help of many true friends, we succeeded in scattering through 
the woods. Our rendezvous that night was near the farm 



MAJOR BOSTWICk's EXPERIENCE. 85 

house of a Union friend, who was to put us across the Con- 
garee in a dug-out. This was eleven (11) miles from Columbia. 
We made about twenty-five miles that night. On the night of 
the 2d-3d the two lieutenants of the Army of the Potomac 
left us and started for the coast. Wc never heard of them 
afterwards. 

With my pocket knife I cut each of us a stout hickory stick, 
which was the only weapons we had. These we carried throuo-h 
to Knoxville, Tennessee. We traveled only at night, and in 
single file within sight of each other. As the day began to 
dawn we turned into the woods and lay during the day, but 
dare not make a fire. On the 5th, near Newberry, just before 
morning, we met a colored man. He told us to go up one of 
the forks, where he had a brother. McFadden mistrusted this 
man and would not go with us, but Paine and myself went. 
That night he brought us some cooked spare-ribs, coffee and 
milk and showed us the way to his brother's. This man's wife 
was tickled to death to see us, and he wanted to go with us. 
He put some red pepper and onions into a bottle of turpentine, 
and said if we rubbed this on our feet and legs the hounds 
would not follow us. He kept watch outside the cabin and 
went eight miles with us on the way, but refused to take any 
pay from us. 

We kept to the east of Greenville, South Carolina, becau.se 
there were troops at that station. Being out of rations we ate 
turnips and stumps of cabbages, which made us sick. I went 
to a negro cabin where they got us a supper and cooked a peck 
of sweet potatoes to put in our haversacks. Perhaps I shall not 
place everything in the right order, for I lost my memoranda 
before I got to the lines. 

At Tyger's river, on the waters of the Saluda, we came to a 
bridge where there was a guard, all of whom appeared to be 
asleep. The stream could not be crossed except at this bridge. 
Two men lay about the middle of the bridge, and one sat near 
one end with his head on his knees. I was to strike him on 
the head with my cane, and all of us to spring on the other two. 
My man fell off into the water. We seized the muskets of the 
others and bound them with their knapsack straps. We hur- 



86 . WAR MEMORANDA, 

ried along the road with them about two miles. They begged 
so piteously (promised not to tell and told us about the roads) 
that we did not kill them. We bound them to some trees and 
hurried on. By daylight we thought we had made twenty-five 
miles and were in the vicinity of Hendersonville. 

At the Saluda pass of the Blue Ridge was a fire ahead of us 
on the road, and there appeared to be men standing around it. 
We went back up a mountain and got into a rock shelter. The 
next day we saw there were no pickets, but only stumps around 
the fire. In that shelter I left my diary, knife, fork and spoon. 
Soon after we saw a tent and some men at a bridge, about 9 p. 
M. There was a fearful storm. We crossed the stream among 
rocks below the bridge, chmbed a precipice over one hundred 
feet high by grasping the laurels, and got into the road beyond. 
About this time, towards morning, we heard the bloodhounds 
bellow. Then horns began to blow, and other hounds to 
answer in all directions. We crept along a fence into a brook, 
and went up it in the water. As we lay on our blankets two 
hounds attacked us, whom we killed with our clubs. 

We wished to get on the west side of the French Broad river, 
and believing we were on the wrong road, came out of the 
woods that night, when we heard a halloo. I went into the 
road and saw a Rebel picket, who called halt. " Where do you 
belong?" said he. "Charleston." "Where are you going?" 
"To Flat Rock." "You are deserters." "That's so." "Well, 
I would desert too, but I have a wife here. You can pass." 

We came upon a number of houses, and went behind a large 
elm log, from which the bark had partly slid off. In the morn- 
ino- we thought it was the town of Asheville. It rained and 
snowed three inches deep, with a strong wind. Our pains were 
dreadful, but we dare not stir that day. The place was Hen- 
dersonville, thirty-five miles from Asheville. That night we 
had so nearly perished that we went to the negro quarters of a 
fine house to dry our blankets. The man was not at home, but 
his wife said it would not do to stay in their cabin. She was 
the most sympathetic person we had met, and went to the still 
house, built a fire, gave us a bottle of applejack, gave me a 
pair of socks, made a pouch for me, and when her husband 



EXPERIENCE OF COL. GARIS. 87 

came home he offered to pilot us to the house of a Union 
white man in the mountains, who had charge of the under- 
ground railroad. It was about midnight when we found his 
house, with great difficulty. He doubted us, and held a parley- 
through the door. I convinced him by showing a letter from 
home. He said they were watched day and night ; it would not 
do for us to be seen there, but his colored man would show us 
to the stable ; they would send us something to eat, and this 

man would show us the way to Mr. , twelve miles. He 

said it was reported that Col. Kirk's Federal Rangers were 
on the French Broad, and that the Rebel pickets had with- 
drawn to Asheville. I do not give the name of this heroic man 
and family, for fear there may be yet in that region some Rebel 
devils who would retaliate. 

He gave us his sign manual on a piece of paper, a peculiar 
scrawl, which all the underground white men of the mountains 

understood, and helped the prisoners forward. At Mr. 's 

were only his wife and daughter ; he was obliged to stay in the 
woods or be shot. We showed our sign manual. We stayed 
two nights in the center of a hay stack. They directed us to 

's, and he to 's. From there we crossed the French 

Broad, in a dug-out, to Painted Rocks, where the Federal pick- 
ets were. There were nineteen (19) escaped prisoners there. 
Paine started alone for the next station in the night. He met 
a sentinel, who fired at him in the dark, but did not hit him. 
The prisoners went on without guns or a guard. Near night, 
when we thought all danger was past, about a dozen guerillas 
rose up in the bushes and fired at us. Only one man was hit, 
whose under lip was entirely carried away. They stripped us 
of our blankets and all -other valuables. It was the last day of 
December when we reached Knoxville." 

EXPERIENCE OF COL. GARIS. 

Col. C. Garis, of Washington, Fayette County, Ohio, was a 
captain in the Twentieth Ohio. Soon after the battle of Shiloh 
Church he resigned on account of a large abcess in the left lung, 
which, it was presumed, would soon terminate his life. 



QQ WAR MEMORANDA. 

When the one hundred days' regiments were organized, he 
was appointed a colonel, and sent to Kentucky. His command 
was stationed at Cynthiana, on the Licking river, when the 
place was attacked by Morgan, with a large force. J. R. Stewart, 
who had been a private in the Twentieth Ohio, and was then 
hospital steward, was captured in the town early in the day. 

After several hours' fighting, Morgan set fire to the buildings 
occupied by Col. Garis, and sent Stewart to him with a demand 
to surrender. On his way back Morgan's men fired on Stewart, 
but Morgan told them he was a prisoner, and they allowed him 
to pass. 

Stewart was taken away by the Confederates, but about 
thirty miles out he managed to escape. Col. Garis came out 
of the burning buildings and surrendered. 

He was fired upon at a few steps by five men, one shot pass- 
ing through the diseased lung. He was left for dead, or more 
bullets would have been put into his body. What appeared to 
be entirely fatal wounds, proved to be a savage remedy for his 
lungs. From the bullet holes a large quantity of pus was di 
charged, and, although not very robust, Col. Garis is still living, 
and a man of active business. 

HIS STATEMENT. 

"I cheerfully contribute my mite to carry to posterity the 
noble deeds of the men I had the honor to command. 

"You use the proper term when you call our treatment at 
Cynthiana a horrid butchery. We fought for two hours with 
arms inferior and a force ten to our one, from some buildings, 
which gave us some advantage; but the people, being nearly all 
Rebels, set fire to the buildings, which compelled us to surren- 
der or be roasted alive. We chose the former, expecting to be 
treated as prisoners of war ; but to the surprise of us all, as 
when I, at the head of my men, stepped out of the building, we 
were fired upon by five men, not more than ten or twelve yards 
from me, and I received every ball in my arm, side and 
shoulder, after which they ceased firing. 

" While weltering in my blood, they tore my sword off from 
me, and robbed me of my watch. My horse had been shot 



EXPERIENCE OF COL, GARIS. 89 

from under me at the commencement of the battle. My sad- 
dle, pistols, trunk, and all we had shared the fate of my 
sword and purse. 

"J. R. Stewart was severely tried during the fight (he hav- 
ing been taken prisoner early in the engagement) by being 
compelled to carry a flag of truce to me, under a galling fire, 
demanding a surrender. 

"I cannot speak in too much praise of all the command, as 
•every man did his whole duty, and fought like veterans. Their 
names should be enrolled in history, that their children should 
know what their fathers have done to perpetuate this Govern- 
ment. 

Gen. Hobson, who was only a mile distant, might have saved 
us until Gen. Burbridge, who was in hot pursuit, would have 
•enabled us to drive off Morgan." 



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